[0:00]

[1:24] So workshop session council member Lutz Cole

[1:29] is not with us this evening, so I'll be running

[1:31] the meeting for everybody.

[1:33] So bear with me as I stammer through this.

[1:36] We have council member Ballard virtual tonight,

[1:40] and I believe Laura might be joining us at some point

[1:45] virtually, but we'll see if she's able to make it.

[1:47] I get started on our first item.

[1:50] That's the housing action plan revised draft.

[1:53] I believe Mike has an introduction on that one.

[1:56] All right.

[1:57] Thank you, Mayor Pro tem and members of council.

[2:00] And tonight we are revisiting a revised draft

[2:03] or revisiting reviewing a revised draft

[2:07] of our housing action plan.

[2:10] Couple workshops ago, council had a presentation on a draft

[2:15] and we have Molly Fitzpatrick with route policy

[2:18] online with us.

[2:19] Who's put the work into this as our consultant

[2:23] and worked on previous policies plans as well.

[2:28] We provided a redlined version and a clean version

[2:33] in the council packet, which was posted on GJ city.org

[2:37] for the public to review.

[2:39] We got that posted last Wednesday, I believe,

[2:42] and tonight the purpose is really to get council's thoughts

[2:48] on those changes, see if the changes were based

[2:51] on the feedback from your last workshop

[2:53] on the housing action plan we would like to get this to meet

[2:59] the deadlines with the state requirements and everything,

[3:02] to get this through the regular council

[3:05] meetings and the public hearing that the state requires for us

[3:10] to get to final approval.

[3:12] Looking to do that later in September or October

[3:16] if necessary.

[3:17] And so, I think to start off if and I

[3:22] also have Paul Starkey here from our housing team as well.

[3:28] I can help answer some questions,

[3:30] but I think Molly will be our presenter.

[3:33] Molly, if are you able to just pull up something that where

[3:38] we can just walk through a quick overview of those changes

[3:42] and then see if council has any questions or discussion related

[3:45] to those and if there's anything you'd like us to change or add.

[3:49] Can you hear us.

[3:50] Well Molly, we can.

[3:52] Can you guys hear me.

[3:53] The tech check to make sure we're all set.

[3:56] So perfect.

[3:59] Thanks so much for the intro.

[4:00] Appreciate the time.

[4:01] I know you guys have other agenda items as well,

[4:04] and so I'm primarily here to answer questions.

[4:06] I'm going to do a quick run through on the key changes.

[4:09] I don't have that in a slide deck format

[4:11] just because they're pretty quick.

[4:13] And I think the easiest way for you all to look at obviously,

[4:16] is checking the red line, which I know

[4:17] you've all reviewed already.

[4:18] So let me just walk through at a high level, the key things

[4:24] that you should expect to see as you're looking

[4:25] through those red lines.

[4:26] And I'll take any questions that you all have.

[4:29] First of all, this new draft is intended

[4:33] to reflect the feedback both from our council discussion,

[4:37] your council discussion.

[4:39] Last time I was there, as well as some feedback

[4:43] that we received from stakeholders, primarily

[4:46] the housing authority.

[4:47] And I think I saw Scott there as well tonight.

[4:50] So he's around to help support that as well.

[4:53] In terms of feedback from the last council session,

[4:56] certainly there's a couple tweaks throughout,

[4:58] but the two primary changes that you'll

[5:00] see based on our conversation was, number one, removing

[5:04] the recommendation that formalized

[5:07] a Housing Advisory board as part of our discussion.

[5:09] Your discussion.

[5:11] It really felt like, look, we can do that really just

[5:13] through targeted engagement.

[5:14] We're already having those conversations.

[5:16] We don't need to formalize that in a board.

[5:18] So you'll see the removal of that recommendation

[5:20] based on that feedback.

[5:22] The other thing which I think is more minor.

[5:24] We did talk a good bit about just your current budget

[5:27] priorities and acknowledging that any consideration

[5:31] for potential funding of housing that would be

[5:35] separate from the general fund.

[5:36] So you can still have those conversations

[5:38] with the general fund, but the strategy,

[5:41] which was strategy 7 is now or was strategy 8 is now.

[5:45] Strategy seven said explore revenue

[5:46] options and financing tools.

[5:48] We pushed that further out into the planning period.

[5:52] So as you all this housing action plan is a six year plan.

[5:56] We initially had that financing and funding strategy

[5:59] in a to two year period, and we've pushed that out further

[6:05] into more of 4 to six years in terms

[6:07] of looking for opportunities for new funding sources.

[6:10] So that's one of the action items under what's

[6:12] currently strategy seven.

[6:13] Those are the two main topics that

[6:16] came out of your conversation.

[6:18] As I mentioned, another source of updates

[6:21] was feedback that we received from the Grand

[6:23] Junction housing authority.

[6:24] Really thorough and great review from that group.

[6:27] Obviously, they're a key partner and a key implementer.

[6:31] Those changes were primarily focused

[6:33] around making sure we're emphasizing in the right places

[6:37] engagement with stakeholders.

[6:39] So particularly as we're taking out that Housing Advisory board

[6:42] as a formalized response, making sure that we're really

[6:45] clear within recommendations where it's really important

[6:49] to make sure you're engaging with those partners,

[6:51] getting feedback and input from those partners,

[6:53] and having them as really kind of a leadership partner,

[6:56] not just a reflection partner.

[6:58] So you'll see some of those changes

[6:59] throughout a couple other kind of technical adjustments

[7:02] and making sure that we're characterizing their programs

[7:04] correctly, that we're looking at,

[7:07] some of the incentives in a way that makes sense as well.

[7:10] So a little bit of feedback from them

[7:12] that emphasizes that partnership role.

[7:15] And then two other things I want to touch on for in terms

[7:19] of the edits, one is real minor update for flow, but you'll see,

[7:24] we kind of moved the progress update from your last strategy

[7:28] just into an appendix to help the actual housing

[7:30] action plan read a little more clearly

[7:32] focused on current priorities.

[7:34] So you'll see that big section moved.

[7:36] We didn't lose it.

[7:37] We just moved it to an appendix.

[7:38] And then finally, the only real content addition to this one

[7:45] is looking at the framework for annual prioritization,

[7:49] I will maybe share my screen briefly just

[7:53] to show you what that looks like, which I know you can see

[7:56] it in yours as well, but let me just pull that up

[7:59] real briefly because we have this nice infographic

[8:03] that was designed by staff.

[8:04] Actually, I think Paul was helpful on this front.

[8:07] That just gives you a sense of really how to think about this

[8:10] in an annual version.

[8:11] So as I mentioned, this is a six year

[8:14] housing strategy that you also are submitting to the state.

[8:18] But really when you think about priorities,

[8:19] and we talked about priorities a good bit last time

[8:21] and really acknowledged those things change year to year,

[8:25] depending on what grants are available, what your staff

[8:27] capacity looks like at any point in time,

[8:30] as well as what your funding priorities are for that year.

[8:32] And so we want to be really sensitive to that.

[8:35] Make sure we're not giving you priorities that

[8:36] don't fit over a long term.

[8:39] And so we really felt like, look,

[8:40] instead of really prioritizing in a way that

[8:43] may become we are unrealistic.

[8:46] Your strategies.

[8:46] We just wanted to give you some framework and thoughts

[8:49] around how do we think about this annually when we're going

[8:52] through the housing budget, when we're looking at general funds,

[8:56] how do we think about those things.

[8:57] And so you'll see that as a new content item.

[9:00] It's not intended to lock you into anything

[9:02] or say, oh, this is what you have to do each year.

[9:05] It really is.

[9:06] Hey, these are the things to think about

[9:08] as you're making those priority decisions

[9:10] on a year to year basis.

[9:12] So I'll pull that up briefly.

[9:13] And then we can pivot into any questions that you might have.

[9:18] So give me just a second on the screen

[9:19] shares giving me a pinwheel.

[9:21] So let me see if we can get it up here.

[9:23]

[9:29] There it comes.

[9:31] So hopefully you'll see this again.

[9:33] This is just the infographic.

[9:35] There's a lot on here.

[9:35] We're not going to walk through it.

[9:37] But I just wanted to acknowledge there's a wide range of criteria

[9:41] that you all already think about when

[9:43] you're thinking about priorities for other components.

[9:46] This just highlights what those are within the housing space,

[9:50] what questions you may want to consider as you're doing that

[9:53] and how to apply it.

[9:54] Now, there are still obviously within each priority

[9:57] that we talked about last time or within each strategy.

[9:59] There's timelines, there's actions.

[10:01] This just gives you additional help

[10:03] as you're thinking about how do we allocate

[10:04] funds or not allocate funds.

[10:06] And what are we really focusing on with the staff capacity

[10:10] that you have.

[10:11] So that's all I have for the update,

[10:12] but I'm happy to answer questions on any of the redlines

[10:16] specifically or just in general.

[10:18] Next steps are, as you all probably

[10:21] it is currently available for public comment,

[10:23] so we are still taking public comments

[10:25] as they come in on the draft housing action plan.

[10:30] Once at the end of that public comment period,

[10:33] there will also be a public hearing and then approval by you

[10:36] guys and submission to dola.

[10:38] In the meantime, dola is giving a preliminary kind of courtesy

[10:42] review to make sure everything's looking like the T's are crossed

[10:45] and I's are dotted and that sort of thing.

[10:47] So with that, I'll open it back up for any questions

[10:49] or kick back to I don't know Paul,

[10:53] if you want to if you had anything

[10:54] to add that I may have missed.

[10:56] I know you've worked really closely on this as well.

[10:58] Thank you so much for that.

[11:00] Molly, did you have something else.

[11:02] City manager.

[11:04] I think we don't have much to add.

[11:05] I did just want to note that the point at which extending

[11:10] the time for looking at other types of financial models

[11:14] is not in reference only to.

[11:18] I know we had a robust discussion last time,

[11:20] but there's many different ways of finding funding.

[11:23] And it doesn't just it's not solely focused

[11:26] on any kind of tax or increase.

[11:29] It's looking at currently when we've added funding outside

[11:33] of grants or other programs, it's been

[11:36] a general fund contribution.

[11:39] And knowing that we can't sustain

[11:41] general fund contributions on an annual basis.

[11:46] This is an opportunity to extend the period of time.

[11:50] So not one to two years, but the period of time

[11:52] where we are seeking all the different creative.

[11:55] Some of those funding sources may not even be available now

[11:58] to go after, but working with our partners in a way

[12:01] that we're able to seek out other types of opportunities

[12:04] for funding affordable housing in the community,

[12:08] whether that's through the city or through our partners,

[12:11] but making sure that we have that ability without locking it

[12:15] into one way.

[12:17] Council Kennedy Yeah, and actually, Molly and Mike,

[12:20] I really appreciate the fact that literally what each of you

[12:23] said were kind of my first two questions

[12:25] that I'd been working on this topic.

[12:28] So, Molly, thank you for that.

[12:31] Talking about that annual look at funding

[12:33] and that it's not locking us into anything

[12:37] and obviously we can't commit future councils to action.

[12:41] Year by year that.

[12:43] But it's just where we take the doubt out of the way

[12:46] that it's written that, well, this council passed this

[12:49] and it's a mandate for them to the next council to take

[12:52] this action to fund this thing.

[12:54] I think that we just have to be careful in how we

[12:57] word that which I think your first comment certainly

[13:00] addressed that.

[13:01] So thank you for that clarification.

[13:03] And then Mike, that next point that explore dedicated revenue

[13:09] was a concern because that can certainly come across as hey,

[13:11] let's pass a tax or a fee that is also potentially a tax.

[13:17] So that was something I appreciate just that the options

[13:23] and again, since we're not requiring anything

[13:26] of a future council, but these are basically these

[13:29] are guidelines right.

[13:30] So we're not saying that, hey, we are going to do this.

[13:32] We are this isn't council giving direction to staff.

[13:36] And I just want to make sure I'm understanding that clearly.

[13:38] I see Molly, I see you adding your nodding.

[13:40] Your head is am, I am, I am, I tracking on that with that way.

[13:43] I'm saying that on number two that dedicated funding, revenue

[13:46] exploring that is basically just a matter of saying, hey,

[13:49] let's keep our eyes open for opportunities

[13:51] to bring in additional funding sources.

[13:54] Yes, that is I mean, that word explore at the beginning

[13:58] is very intentional.

[14:00] We are not suggesting a specific action other than keep your eyes

[14:05] open to the extent that it becomes a council

[14:08] priority to say, hey, we want to understand what our options are.

[14:11] Then you direct.

[14:12] At that time, you would direct staff to explore that and say,

[14:15] hey, what are those options.

[14:16] What do those look like.

[14:18] All of.

[14:18] There's lots of pre-work before anything jumps to oh,

[14:21] do a ballot initiative for tax.

[14:23] There's lots of other things as Mike mentioned

[14:27] and that is really intended to be in there so that if you want

[14:32] to prioritize that in the future,

[14:34] you have some language and some structure

[14:35] so that you're not reinventing the wheel from ground 0.

[14:38] We're really trying to get you off on the right foot

[14:41] if and when you're ready to look at that,

[14:43] and we don't expect you to even start looking at that

[14:46] within the next several years.

[14:47] That's why that one specifically is on that 4 to six

[14:49] year timeline, because that's far enough out, but still

[14:52] within the planning period.

[14:54] Great and then just one last thing, that regulatory cost

[15:00] test.

[15:01] I really like that idea to where we're

[15:02] looking at cost impacts on housing

[15:04] production and affordability before adoption.

[15:07] And we're looking at specific cost drivers around housing.

[15:11] Is there a way that we can strengthen that.

[15:13] Is there something else we can do

[15:15] to make sure that this is something

[15:17] that is a policy consideration.

[15:21] I know it's hard to say.

[15:22] We're going to put anything going forward

[15:24] on any future council decision.

[15:27] But as these things go, I think this

[15:29] is it's just so important that we consider

[15:32] impacts on the cost of housing.

[15:35] Yep and I think to be honest, that one's

[15:38] really hard to get to a middle ground of detail on,

[15:41] if that makes sense.

[15:42] So you say, hey, you need to be thinking about this.

[15:44] Like understand costs of regulatory impact,

[15:46] understand the benefit.

[15:48] And then you've got to weigh those as trade offs.

[15:50] And then beyond that level of detail,

[15:53] it's really, really hard without something specific to say,

[15:56] this is what you weigh or this is how you calculate it.

[15:59] It really kind of jumps from the conceptual you

[16:02] have to really be looking at a specific thing

[16:03] to understand how that is.

[16:05] So I mean, I appreciate your request to strengthen it.

[16:08] I don't know that we can give it a lot more meat on the bones

[16:11] just because it gets real nuanced

[16:13] real fast, if that makes sense.

[16:15] Depending on what that component is.

[16:18] I'm certainly the extent to which

[16:20] you have additional thoughts on that and want to share those.

[16:22] I'm open to certainly open to hearing those.

[16:24] I just know that from the economist perspective,

[16:27] I jump to OK, how are we doing this and how are we doing that

[16:30] and what are the details.

[16:31] So it gets pretty tricky pretty quick.

[16:33] So it councils comfortable with the conceptual understanding

[16:38] of hey let's make sure we're evaluating

[16:41] costs and benefits of policy considerations

[16:43] through this lens.

[16:44] That was our intent.

[16:46] But I'm certainly open to other thoughts on that.

[16:49] So what comes to mind specifically

[16:51] in this is a conversation we had in this room a couple of years

[16:55] ago about undergrounding utilities

[16:57] and say, well, yeah, sure.

[16:59] It's pretty.

[16:59] Yeah it looks great.

[17:00] It honestly does it.

[17:02] Wouldn't it be great if all utilities just were underground.

[17:04] However, there's significant costs associated with that.

[17:07] Who's like what is that cost.

[17:09] So if staff is going to bring us that say staff,

[17:12] we want you to also bring cost associated.

[17:15] If you have an idea such as underground utilities.

[17:18] Just as an example, we need to say more than hey

[17:21] that looks great.

[17:22] Wouldn't that be great for our whole community

[17:23] to have more underground utilities.

[17:25] But to say what are the actual costs

[17:27] that are impacting housing.

[17:29] I guess that would be the example.

[17:31] But the crux of it would be if we're

[17:34] going to take into consideration something like that,

[17:36] we would need to look at costs.

[17:38]

[17:41] I guess my only reaction to that is,

[17:43] wouldn't that be the policy discussion

[17:46] of that council at that time.

[17:47] So it really I think presumably come up.

[17:51] But it really needs to be since we're not binding

[17:54] a future council, it needs to be that council's policy discussion

[17:59] and what weight they put on that, because we

[18:01] can't force that on them.

[18:02] We can put it as kind of our general priority

[18:04] as it's written, but we can't force

[18:06] a future council to require staff to do anything.

[18:11] And of course, we can't force a future council to do anything.

[18:14] That's, that's a given.

[18:15] But what I'm saying is that when staff brings us something,

[18:18] brings us, for instance, undergrounding utilities,

[18:20] that they may bring a anticipated cost per unit

[18:24] for something like that.

[18:25] And I know every utility.

[18:29] Utility theory that's on the area

[18:31] depends upon what an easement might cost, things like that,

[18:33] but just that it's a consideration on staff side,

[18:36] not necessarily from the council's perspective.

[18:40] Any other comments or questions from council.

[18:44] Sure council member.

[18:48] Molly I work on some of the homeless stuff

[18:51] and there were several mentions of needing and working

[18:58] on emergency and transitional housing, which when we work

[19:02] with the many, many providers in town,

[19:05] is the number one need because they can get people

[19:08] in wraparound services and they can work with their providers

[19:14] and all that stuff, but they can't

[19:15] get them from a tent to a transitional housing phase.

[19:19] And we've talked a lot about what our role is on it,

[19:23] but it wasn't really clear to me which direction

[19:28] we were going from this report.

[19:30] As far as our concerns about transitional housing,

[19:34] there was some mention about deferring stuff to the County,

[19:39] but I've never heard that the County was

[19:41] excited about working on that.

[19:43] And there was some mention about working with MCC on that,

[19:49] but I've been in their meetings for years

[19:51] and they really haven't come up with any solutions or anything.

[19:55] So in your opinion, where does that leave us.

[20:01] Great question.

[20:02] And I think you're astute to acknowledge we're not overly

[20:06] directive in this document about how to address that

[20:11] and exactly where those priorities are.

[20:13] Priorities are I would say the housing action plan is

[20:16] intentionally deferential to the community

[20:22] wide on how strategy and implementation plan.

[20:25] So because that plan is currently part of your approach

[20:30] to homelessness as a region, we wanted to be deferential

[20:34] to that, particularly knowing that plan

[20:36] could get updated during the lifespan of this six year plan.

[20:39] And so where we have left, it really

[20:41] is under strategy number 5, which is to stabilize households

[20:46] through different housing models and homeless response

[20:48] and prevention systems within that strategy.

[20:51] We're saying continue to support implementation

[20:54] of that unhoused strategy and implementation plan

[20:58] because that is really the guidance around exactly

[21:03] how to look at that component, that segment

[21:06] of the housing market.

[21:08] We did different than in previous strategies for the city

[21:12] that that's kind of been a missing piece.

[21:14] We said, hey, here's your housing strategy.

[21:15] Don't forget you have a homeless strategy over here.

[21:18] This time we really try to tie those together a little bit more

[21:21] by intentionally calling out that strategy five of hey,

[21:24] you've got a whole strategy.

[21:26] Make sure you're integrating that.

[21:28] That is part of your entire housing spectrum.

[21:30] And so I would say to answer that more concisely,

[21:36] we are deferential to your existing plan

[21:38] with an acknowledgment that existing

[21:40] plan could get updated and revised

[21:43] during this six year plan.

[21:44]

[21:48] Any other questions or comments from council.

[21:51] Councilman Ballard, do you have anything

[21:53] you would like to add to this.

[21:55] No, I think most of my talking points

[21:58] have already been discussed.

[21:59] Thank you.

[22:01] Great Well, thank you so much, Molly.

[22:02] I really appreciate you on this.

[22:04] I think you did a fantastic job at listening to council

[22:07] and our individual meetings as well as in our group sessions,

[22:10] and really implementing that into the plan.

[22:13] Before we go, city manager Bennett, do you have anything

[22:16] else you'd like to say on this.

[22:17] Yeah, I definitely want to echo.

[22:19] Thank you Molly.

[22:20] And she's been incredibly helpful through this process

[22:23] and the engagement and interviews that she did,

[22:26] and putting it into action and working with our team

[22:28] has it's been great.

[22:30] So I did want to just verify with the council

[22:33] with these changes that we presented

[22:35] tonight, questions you asked.

[22:37] We make these, we accept these changes

[22:40] or as in the clean version, are you ready.

[22:43] Make sure you're ready for us.

[22:44] So we'd be bringing this for formal adoption

[22:47] in the near future.

[22:49] We have to as Molly mentioned, make sure all is good with it.

[22:52] They're finishing that review.

[22:54] And then we would bring that with a public hearing

[22:56] and recommendation for adoption to council.

[23:00] Great how does the process work.

[23:05] We have to it's a requirement.

[23:07] So we have to submit it to them.

[23:08] So they have it to review.

[23:10] And I don't know if there's anything to add to that.

[23:12] They'll get back to us and make sure that it meets.

[23:15] They don't get into how of what we're necessarily trying to do,

[23:19] but they want to make sure that we've met the criteria that's

[23:23] required within an action plan.

[23:27] I'll just echo that they do a courtesy review so that they

[23:29] give us a little bit of feedback, at least

[23:30] on ones we've done prior to this one.

[23:32] They've given us, hey, can you make sure you clarify this,

[23:35] or we want to make sure you're doing this in the couple

[23:39] that they've reviewed of ours already,

[23:40] they've been really, really minor,

[23:42] just tweaked adjustments, that kind of thing.

[23:45] In preparation for that can see that in Appendix

[23:50] A of your housing action plan.

[23:53] We outline exactly what the state is looking for.

[23:57] And then we tell them what pages to look at

[24:00] to make sure that we've answered that question.

[24:02] So we are trying to tee you up to make this as easy as possible

[24:04] for dola to review.

[24:06] And so it's pretty straightforward.

[24:09] And it's relatively informal and that they're really free

[24:13] communicators or have been so far with housing action plans

[24:16] to tell us to make sure we're hitting criteria

[24:19] or if there's anywhere where we would have that conversation,

[24:23] but we haven't had any issues with other plans so far.

[24:26] So from our perspective, yours is certainly looks like it's

[24:32] likely to be compliant.

[24:33] Then the next step is just to actually submit it to the state.

[24:36] Once we get that feedback from them, once you all approve it,

[24:39] we would submit it.

[24:40] They have it on File and then it just

[24:42] becomes part of that requirement makes

[24:46] you more eligible for dollar grants

[24:47] and all those sorts of things.

[24:50] Great Thank you so much.

[24:51] Looking around the room, are we comfortable with moving

[24:54] this to the next phase.

[24:56] Great yeah, I'm seeing lots of nods everywhere.

[24:58] So thank you so much Molly.

[25:00] I really appreciate all your effort time on this.

[25:03] Thank you all for your time.

[25:04] Appreciate it.

[25:04] Bye So our next item on tonight's agenda

[25:09] is budget process and focus overview.

[25:12] And I believe we'll be turning that over to you write

[25:15] have an introduction on that.

[25:17] I do, yeah.

[25:18] Thank you.

[25:18]

[25:21] Thanks for the time tonight on this subject.

[25:24] This is something that we obviously see a lot of support.

[25:28] We have a big team that works on budget

[25:31] throughout our organization.

[25:32] And I appreciate the work of all of our department directors

[25:35] and their teams and budget team.

[25:38] It's a lot of expertise and a lot of great perspectives

[25:41] to consider.

[25:43] As a recap for the council and also

[25:47] for information for the public when

[25:49] we go through our annual budget process

[25:52] before finally, the final act of adopting a budget before the end

[25:57] of the year for the following year,

[25:59] there's a lot of work that goes into that.

[26:01] And typically that's on average about eight

[26:03] months of work the year before that, next that, next year.

[26:07] And so what we have been doing internally

[26:11] is we just completed what we call our line item reviews.

[26:15] That's when we sit down with our extended budget team,

[26:18] with each department individually,

[26:20] and we comb through thousands of line items.

[26:23] So we are in essence, looking at no matter what the amount.

[26:28] So if it's small amounts, large amounts,

[26:31] we're looking at trends, what we spend in those,

[26:34] if we need to spend in those line items we look at,

[26:37] we come through our contracts with for example,

[26:41] it contracts where you have softwares or different things

[26:44] that we use for different services.

[26:47] Make sure that it's still the most optimal.

[26:50] We're finding those that we actually work with our IT

[26:54] department that they're awesome and they're

[26:56] coming up with sometimes we can do that in-house.

[27:00] We can create a dashboard for that

[27:02] or create a program for that.

[27:04] Or yes, we need that outside proprietary software

[27:08] to accomplish that.

[27:10] So we go through those kinds of reviews.

[27:13] We go through one time requests, we go

[27:14] through our personnel requests.

[27:17] So it's very in depth.

[27:19]

[27:23] Excuse me.

[27:24] Prior to that, the first step we did

[27:27] is we had to Director to Director presentations,

[27:30] and we really focused on high level.

[27:33] What are the operational pressures that each service

[27:36] area is facing.

[27:37] What are the headwinds tailwinds.

[27:39] This was a new step that we added into our process,

[27:42] and it was incredibly beneficial to take

[27:45] the time over multiple weeks for departments to take

[27:48] a significant amount of time to walk through a presentation

[27:50] that they had put together after working with their teams,

[27:53] and really explain where those pinch points are,

[27:55] where the opportunities are, where some of the challenges

[27:58] are, and that helped shape, then going into departments,

[28:02] submitting their recommended budgets to our budget team,

[28:07] myself.

[28:08] And then we did those line item reviews.

[28:10] So the next steps for us is some really heavy lifting and work

[28:16] where we try to get to that balance recommendation

[28:19] that we bring to the city council in October.

[28:23] So we will have our October workshops where we devote

[28:26] to presenting our recommended budget,

[28:29] having discussion with the council,

[28:31] we have, we have room for a further discussion

[28:33] on the first workshop in November,

[28:36] and then bringing through the formal adoption

[28:38] process of first reading and second reading

[28:40] starting in November.

[28:42] And so that's the overview of the full piece.

[28:45] We'll touch on that a bit as we go through this.

[28:48] Today our CFO, our Chief Financial Officer,

[28:52] Jay Valentine, and I wanted to present,

[28:56] we've referred in recent meetings

[28:58] and fairly recently multiple times to a structural deficit

[29:04] that we are facing and different than a cyclical deficit

[29:09] where something might just be down for a moment

[29:11] and we have to bridge a gap and then we're back ready to go.

[29:16] We continue to run into being short on revenues

[29:21] for the expenses that we have to deliver,

[29:24] the services that we are committed to provide.

[29:27] And we have I want to be clear, this

[29:31] is in no way trying to point backwards at decisions

[29:34] or anything like that.

[29:35] We have the luxury of hindsight and we have the luxury

[29:38] of trends, and we're using those to look forward

[29:41] at how do we fix this structural deficit tonight is we're not

[29:47] seeking any discussion on trying to find solutions

[29:51] or anything like that.

[29:52] We're heavily involved in that internally.

[29:53] And we'll bring those recommendations in October,

[29:55] as I mentioned earlier.

[29:57] But we want to just be very transparent and public

[30:00] about what the structural what the structural deficit is,

[30:06] why we are there and how we have to address it and addressing it.

[30:10] It's more than just what we do in 2027.

[30:14] You'll see some trends as we walk through,

[30:16] and I'll chime in as Jay is presenting this

[30:18] and we're going to tag team it.

[30:20] But he'll do the bulk of the presenting

[30:22] and we'll point out some key factors.

[30:26] The only portion of a solution that we'll

[30:28] be talking about tonight is the potential, the potential use

[30:32] of fund balance for some portion of this deficit

[30:36] that we're talking about.

[30:37] So we'll get more in detail there.

[30:40] And then we have a couple other we

[30:41] have a presentation after this on financial policies

[30:45] and a new financial report.

[30:46] But first we're going to walk through this structural deficit

[30:49] and the painting, the picture of what we are working through

[30:53] before we get back to you all in October

[30:56] with recommended budgets.

[31:00] Excellent I think with that, we'll be turning it

[31:09] over to our CFO, Jay Valentine.

[31:11]

[31:14] Thank you all.

[31:15]

[31:22] So as Mike laid the groundwork, I just

[31:25] want to go through the challenge and we're going to be

[31:29] very transparent about this.

[31:31] And the slides will speak for themselves,

[31:33] but I'll go through them.

[31:34] The currently the 2027 balancing gap is $6 million.

[31:42] So if we didn't add any new staff or any of the one

[31:45] time requests this status quo.

[31:49] We need to track the $6 million deficit.

[31:56] When we add to that, there are $7 million

[31:58] of additional one time requests and 7.9 9 million

[32:04] of new positions are salary requests.

[32:08] 5.5 million of that is public safety,

[32:11] and the rest is for the remaining

[32:15] pieces of the government.

[32:17] As you'll see in some other slides.

[32:19] This is our sixth straight year of declining.

[32:24] We had $11.3 million surplus in 2021.

[32:28] And it's declined from there to where we've faced a deficit

[32:34] these prior two years.

[32:37] So as Mike mentioned, when the expenses are outpacing

[32:46] our ongoing expenses are outpacing our revenues,

[32:49] that creates that structural gap.

[32:51] This isn't a one year sales tax is lagging.

[32:55] So we're having a tough budget year,

[32:57] but we expect it to rebound.

[32:59] That would be a cyclical type of deficit.

[33:03] Again, this is structural that we look back.

[33:06] As Mike said, hindsight is 2020.

[33:09] The things we have done that compound

[33:13] in terms of some of the encumbrances

[33:15] that we've taken on.

[33:17]

[33:20] The $6 million gap, as you'll see,

[33:22] is largely it is salary and benefits.

[33:28] One other thing, and we'll talk about all this here a little

[33:31] more in depth.

[33:32] But the first responder fund, where we have the 0.05% 7.5%

[33:40] sales tax.

[33:43] That's going to need a subsidy now from the general fund

[33:45] that growth in public safety.

[33:48] The tax is not enough to cover the expansion of those funds.

[33:54] So this will be the issue will be

[33:56] the first year that the 27 that will be subsidizing

[33:59] hear that going forward.

[34:03]

[34:06] I'm just pointing out you can probably see that

[34:08] from the top bullet, but that this specific piece

[34:12] of our expenses outpacing revenues is only 23% since 2021.

[34:19] So that compounding effect is pretty significant

[34:23] as we get to this point.

[34:24] So while revenues have continued to grow,

[34:28] they've just grown 23% less than expenses.

[34:34] This slide here is I did an online seminar by Cliff Clifton

[34:40] Larson, a national accounting firm,

[34:42] and they did a state and local government, the state

[34:45] of the industry presentation.

[34:47] And this slide actually came from them,

[34:49] where it talks about the reality that's

[34:51] happening across the nation.

[34:55] Focusing on the city's general fund growth

[34:57] is down from 7.5 fiscal year 24 to less than 1% growth.

[35:04] Currently, about 45% of CFOs are confident meeting 26 needs.

[35:11] That means 55% aren't.

[35:14] Obviously, 60% of general fund goes to public safety.

[35:18] And really the ARPA ARPA cliff is here.

[35:22] The all that money that was sloshing around in the economy

[35:28] has dried up.

[35:29] And along with that went a lot of grants

[35:31] that were used to either create programs or prop up programs

[35:35] or used for very specific purposes.

[35:38] So we mirror this national squeeze

[35:43] of slower revenue, flat spending and the end

[35:46] of the federal relief.

[35:48]

[35:54] As I mentioned, the recurring operating margin has

[35:57] declined every year since 2021.

[35:59] And this is graphically how that's depicted.

[36:03] As you can see, starting in 2025,

[36:06] we went into the fund balance at 600,003 million last year.

[36:12] And now without doing anything so far we're down to six.

[36:16] I want to point out that the 600,000 and the three million,

[36:20] that was a lot of council directed uses of fund balance.

[36:27] So we did a lot of things to get that deficit, not deficit

[36:37] to have a flat spending at 0.

[36:39] And then we added the council.

[36:41] But to do that stuff, there's a lot of one time levers

[36:44] that have been used to balance the budgets

[36:48] over the last few years.

[36:49] And those one time levers, I'll just say it.

[36:52] It shields you from reality, for lack

[36:55] of a better word for that one year,

[36:57] but it hits you the next year.

[37:00] So that's also.

[37:02]

[37:05] Compounded over this time.

[37:08] And one thing that we want to point out

[37:09] is the compounding nature began heavily in 2021.

[37:14] So while this is a trend, what's compounded each year

[37:19] are from things that have occurred

[37:22] or ways we balance the budget or things we've added,

[37:26] or new expenses and the expenses outgrowing

[37:29] the revenues along the way.

[37:32] And now we are filling those in a much more significant way

[37:37] than we had in the past.

[37:38]

[37:45] This is another way of showing where

[37:49] our recurring costs have outgrown

[37:51] our unrestricted recurring revenues.

[37:55] It's just the same way of showing

[37:57] a different thing that it's a structural, not a cyclical.

[38:01] You can see it.

[38:03] You could look back and see that.

[38:04] And like Mike said, we've had the benefit of hindsight.

[38:09] The one time items I spoke of would further widen that gap.

[38:14] And we not pulled those certain one time levers again,

[38:19] that gap would be widened.

[38:23] And again, it's just a mix of a mismatch between revenues

[38:28] and expenditures.

[38:29]

[38:36] Just to talk some about our revenue sources here,

[38:39] property tax has grown unevenly since 2021.

[38:44] But we also haven't changed our property

[38:46] tax structure in over 30 years.

[38:49] It's been eight Mills for over, like I said, over 30 years.

[38:55] Add to that the state assessment rate cuts under House Bill 24B,

[39:01] you can see in 2024 the assessed value of properties

[39:06] was rising very quickly.

[39:09] And the state legislature imposed these assessment

[39:17] rate cuts starting in 2025.

[39:21] And so you can see as the result of that has hit us.

[39:28] Had the race not been there, we got our assessment,

[39:31] our mid-year assessment, which is an estimate from the County

[39:34] that didn't have that.

[39:35] We faced about $800,000 hit to our funds.

[39:40] I'll also add on top of that some other things out

[39:46] of our control is the cannabis tax that we receive 10% share

[39:51] of the state tax collected.

[39:54] That got pulled back to 3.5% last year.

[39:58] And this year as of July, they took

[40:00] the state took the rest of it.

[40:03] So we received we don't receive any property tax.

[40:06] That's a 200 plus $1,000 hit there.

[40:11] I guess how to say that.

[40:13] So fund balance.

[40:25] The fund balance I've charted back from 2016

[40:29] from a low of 2017 to 20.4.

[40:33] That's grown to a fund balance of 48.5 million in 2025.

[40:41] So while we're facing a structural deficit,

[40:45] we have found ways ace to add to fund balance.

[40:50]

[40:53] So good work to add to the fund balance.

[40:59] But if it has come at somewhat of a cost.

[41:02] Now that's funny to have that picture.

[41:06] The gross surplus a lot of it came from one time sources.

[41:12] I mentioned the ARPA public safety.

[41:16] We'll talk about a lot.

[41:18] I know PD has had trouble.

[41:21] We would budget for positions, and they

[41:24] were unable to fill those positions

[41:25] because it's hard to recruit and retain police officers.

[41:29] So when that money didn't get spent on hiring police officers,

[41:34] it drops to the fund balance.

[41:35]

[41:45] I just want to point out the 2% sales and use tax is the.

[41:51] About $56 million is what we receive from the 2%

[41:56] and that's what needs to fund general government operations,

[42:01] finance, HR, community development,

[42:05] transportation, engineering, most of Parks and Recreation.

[42:11] And now part of that's is to fund.

[42:18] PD so this doesn't count the public safety tax.

[42:23] So we do get some help from that.

[42:26] But 56 million to put that perspective, when we're looking

[42:30] at a $316 million total budget, 52 million sales tax, sales,

[42:36] and use tax isn't it's not a whole lot

[42:41] to fund what we do from a general fund perspective.

[42:44] We do also include the eight month property tax.

[42:47] But as we've discussed now, that is either leveling out

[42:51] or declining from what it was.

[42:55] The voter approved taxes are restricted.

[42:58] And I think that goes without saying.

[43:00] We can't utilize those for anything

[43:04] other than what those are restricted for.

[43:06] So the first responders, expansion capital, community rec

[43:12] center and certain parks fees are not

[43:17] available for general operations.

[43:21] So we have predicting about $4 million of tax growth.

[43:26] But by the time we add in some of the deterioration

[43:31] of the revenues that I've spoke about,

[43:33] we're looking at about a 1.9 increase in our revenues.

[43:38] So that's a 1.6% which kind of falls

[43:42] in line with that kind of national industry slide

[43:46] that I showed you earlier.

[43:49] Some other things that complicate

[43:52] is the stalled development at o'clock Rios.

[43:58] We're going to pay a debt service of $1.3 million

[44:02] and 27, when the debt service for that

[44:07] was modeled to come from the sales tax

[44:12] and the property tax increment that was generated by the growth

[44:17] of businesses there at that.

[44:21] And we've talked about this as well, that we'll

[44:24] find the rural fire contract to get 3.3 million

[44:28] revenue, that the service costs are at least $2 million

[44:32] higher than that.

[44:33]

[44:44] Mentioned that labor and benefits are driving the cost

[44:48] of what we're seeing in 27.

[44:52] In fact, the operating we're actually seeing so far

[44:56] a little bit of decline in non-personnel operating

[44:59] expenditures.

[45:02] Compensation, as you can see, is up 7.3 million.

[45:07] This does include a $1.3 million placeholder

[45:11] for the compensation, classification

[45:14] and compensation study that's being conducted

[45:17] right now as we speak.

[45:18]

[45:21] Health insurance.

[45:24] We're going to get a lot more into that here

[45:26] in the next couple of slides.

[45:28] But right now, we're looking at a major 50% type major increase

[45:33] in health premiums for 2027.

[45:43] I mentioned the fund transfer, expanding staffing and stations.

[45:47] A new $1.3 million first responder fund transfer

[45:51] is going to be made in 27.

[45:53] I mentioned that it's more like three,

[45:56] but we're utilizing the remainder 2.6 million.

[46:00] I think of the remaining fund balance in that fund.

[46:03] The first responder fund, so that an additional amount

[46:07] is the deficit of that fund.

[46:10]

[46:13] A lot of the drivers.

[46:17] Station 6 and 8 community rec center housing

[46:21] and other added programs.

[46:24] So just created permanent obligations.

[46:26]

[46:34] Compensation plan.

[46:35]

[46:38] From the 2021 through to 2026 general government.

[46:43] Our annualized rate of increase.

[46:45] You can see there what those have been.

[46:49] These are all based on step one of our pay plan.

[46:55] There are people that come in higher than step one.

[46:59] So that's why it's not equal.

[47:01] Each step is 3% in our general compensation plan.

[47:07] So some are a little bit more than that

[47:09] and some are less than that.

[47:11] But it's for that reason.

[47:14] I would add here that this isn't because in previous budget years

[47:21] there was an over budgeting of salaries or benefits.

[47:26] We are still not keeping up with our market based comparisons

[47:33] and with comparisons with other cities and in some situations,

[47:38] we don't just base with other cities.

[47:41] We may look at other utilities in the area

[47:44] for utilities positions and different things like that.

[47:48] And so while that can be looked at as well,

[47:51] that's quite the increase is over time.

[47:55] We're also chasing what has just happened industry wide and not

[48:00] necessarily not just chasing it but trying to so that we're not.

[48:04] It's a significant cost as people leave for higher pay

[48:08] with the skill sets they have.

[48:09] And then we go through the recruitment and all the expense

[48:13] of each recruitment and the time we lose

[48:15] and then the time for training, all that compounds as well.

[48:20] And so for instance, as an example,

[48:22] just taking the police department as an example,

[48:24] there were a number of years where

[48:26] it was very difficult to get lateral hires recruitments.

[48:31] We've finally gotten to what we would call more of a sweet spot

[48:35] and I would say a better comparable in the market.

[48:40] But that is changing every year.

[48:42] So don't just get there and then you've made it.

[48:47] If you don't keep up with where that market is, which

[48:51] is increasing each year, you get back right to the same situation

[48:56] we were in.

[48:57] And that can take that can be one year

[48:59] and you're back into that situation.

[49:01] And so that's not just for police departments for many

[49:04] of our departments, but just as an example

[49:07] where we actually have seen once we get into that,

[49:10] it's not paying the most across the state.

[49:12] It's not even it's being very comparable considering where

[49:18] our location, considering our size, levels of services

[49:21] and things like that, where all of a sudden,

[49:24] we are competitive enough to bring lateral recruitments in.

[49:29] And so that's why when Jay says it's not always a step one,

[49:32] whether no matter what department it's in,

[49:35] we're seeking a certain amount of experience,

[49:37] and you have a number of those years of experience

[49:39] in exactly that role.

[49:41] You're not going to start at that step one.

[49:44] But if we are not competitive in that market,

[49:49] we struggle and we're not able to make those recruitments.

[49:52] And we've seen that recently as we

[49:55] recruit for some of our higher level positions,

[49:58] where we've had to where we've gotten

[50:01] some incredible feedback from finalists

[50:03] that were very well qualified.

[50:05] They were excited about the area,

[50:07] excited about the organization.

[50:09] Everything seemed to look right until they start calculating

[50:12] the move, selling a home wherever they may be

[50:15] in the state or in the country.

[50:18] Purchasing a home here, all those things that everybody's

[50:21] running into.

[50:22] And then with the salary not being as competitive,

[50:25] we've had to increase those.

[50:27] And so with the Comp class study that we're doing,

[50:29] we don't anticipate it won't be.

[50:32] Every position is going up, but we do.

[50:34] We anticipate that some of those market adjustments

[50:38] will show where we might be lagging

[50:41] in some of those positions.

[50:44] As Mike discussed.

[50:48] We had to make market adjustments and in PD and fire

[50:53] in order to help recruit and retain those.

[50:57] So as you can see that the annualized

[51:00] increases are different from the general government.

[51:05] And I think we've explained why that is.

[51:07] And it's actually worked our police chief and fire chief.

[51:14] So that's just for comparison's sake.

[51:17]

[51:26] OK health care costs.

[51:29] And I have.

[51:30] I have Shelly Carrasquilla behind me,

[51:32] and Brandon has finance director and Matt Martinez, our budget

[51:38] manager, who are all very well versed in this problem

[51:42] because they've been working on it all year long.

[51:45] We do have a.

[51:46]

[51:49] Consultant Brown and Brown, that what

[51:54] helps us to navigate this and help this

[51:58] to the self-funding model from the previous fully

[52:01] insured model.

[52:03] And we made that move to self-funded when

[52:08] our Cigna rates were I think.

[52:13] What says 41% That was what our renewal was going to be.

[52:18] So we went to a self-funding model.

[52:21] And I think the only thing that we

[52:27] probably are not the only thing that we didn't do.

[52:30] We should have done is put more seed in that fund more

[52:35] to have a larger fund balance, to be

[52:37] able to ride the tide with the.

[52:42] Sometimes fluctuation in high claim costs to ride that wave.

[52:48] But you can see the.

[52:49]

[52:52] Rising costs here.

[52:53]

[52:56] Now for 26.

[52:58] We need $1.2 million to restore the insurance fund to 0.

[53:05] That's 25% Our costs are 25% above what was projected

[53:11] for 2026 to where it's $2,528 per

[53:17] employee per month, compared to the $2,028

[53:23] per employee per month.

[53:24]

[53:29] That red dot, that red line is what's needed

[53:32] to restore the fund to 0.

[53:35] So one thing that we did ask Brown and Brown to do

[53:39] was what would have happened if we would have stayed

[53:43] in a fully insured model.

[53:46] And so they went back and made that decision.

[53:50] And we've self-funding still saved us $5.8 million

[53:56] over that time.

[53:58] So we have it was the right choice.

[54:05] Health care is are the health costs have been rising sharply,

[54:10] but we still save that 85 $8 million.

[54:15] So one of the proposals that we're seeking

[54:18] is to take that some of that $5.8 million that got

[54:23] added to the fund balance because of that decision

[54:27] to go to self-insured and reinvest that

[54:32] back into that insurance fund.

[54:35]

[54:40] A 50% reinvestment of those funds.

[54:43] That's what that graph is telling you,

[54:44] would give us a $1.94 million and a 75%

[54:50] reinvestment, 3.4 million, and I'll let that slide.

[54:54] Am I missing anything there.

[54:56] That's a good summary.

[54:57] Jay, could you go to the slide before real quick.

[54:59] I just want to reiterate a couple things here.

[55:03] When it comes to this.

[55:05] So just to make sure everybody's on

[55:08] and anybody watching go into self-funded means

[55:11] that when we may have a contract with Cigna for example.

[55:17] So an employee goes to a health provider,

[55:21] they provide their insurance card,

[55:23] but Cigna is not paying the claims.

[55:26] We pay those claims.

[55:28] And so when you make that transition,

[55:30] you have to fund a fund balance with enough

[55:34] to pay for those claims that may come before all the fees you're

[55:38] collecting each month, where each employee is

[55:40] paying what their fee is, where the city's

[55:42] paying another portion.

[55:44] And so when we did that shift with the 2020 of hindsight,

[55:51] even at that time, my understanding

[55:54] is Brown and Brown.

[55:55] And there were recommendations that we fund that fund balance

[55:58] more than we chose to do.

[56:01] So we went a little more aggressive.

[56:03] And then those claims were more.

[56:06] But during that time we had savings throughout that

[56:11] went into fund balance.

[56:13] So we're not saying we need to take fund balance to make

[56:16] those annual one time expenses.

[56:19] Because it's two part.

[56:21] We didn't put enough in to start with.

[56:24] And have we done that we would be at a better spot.

[56:28] And then there's the portion of increased costs and claims.

[56:32] So we want to replenish that fund so that we're in a better

[56:37] position for where that fund where the health

[56:40] insurance fund should be.

[56:42] And then of course, there's then we

[56:45] have to address those ongoing increases

[56:47] in claims as they were.

[56:49] But we didn't fund it enough at the start.

[56:52] And we can clearly see that.

[56:53] We also can see, as the slide before said,

[56:57] is that we know that if that we saved 5.8 million.

[57:05] So yes, expenses, claims have gone up.

[57:08] But we also but we also save 5.8 million.

[57:11] And if we stayed fully insured, we also

[57:14] know that some of the other things that we've added,

[57:18] such as some fixed cost for benefits like a health clinic

[57:25] that every employer we spend.

[57:28] I think it's 43% less on each employee that visits.

[57:34] Is it.

[57:34] We saved $4,000.

[57:36] Sorry yeah, we save 4,000 per employee.

[57:39] So we see these very specific savings.

[57:42] When we use these fixed costs versus making these full claims.

[57:46] And so we have the right model and we have the right focus

[57:52] on where we can add minor expenses to reduce

[57:56] much larger claim expenses.

[57:59] But part of that takes some investment in those fixed areas.

[58:04] But it also means rightsizing this fund balance that

[58:09] was created during times where we were also increasing

[58:13] our overall fund balance.

[58:15] So we don't see this as being something we want to come back

[58:18] to year over year and say we need to take more fund balance

[58:21] and put towards this.

[58:22] We're looking at it as a fixing what added to getting us there

[58:29] outside of the piece of increased claims

[58:33] so that we're in a much better spot moving forward.

[58:37] Outside of seeking out competitive pay

[58:41] are by far our strongest component

[58:45] of retaining employees as our health insurance

[58:49] and benefits that come along with that.

[58:51] So drastic changes there could cause

[58:53] even bigger swings than minor than where the pay

[59:00] moves as we move forward.

[59:03] So it's a pretty significant component.

[59:05] We just want to reiterate over and over that this is not

[59:09] to say we want to use fund balance

[59:11] for continuous ongoing costs, but it's to say,

[59:14] hey, we increased our fund balance during a time

[59:17] where we had in the one year we started,

[59:21] we chose to save and try and reduce by not putting

[59:25] enough in fund to start with.

[59:28] Which caught up to us within those three years.

[59:30]

[59:36] Yeah that's right.

[59:37] I did it on my own.

[59:40] I just want to reiterate to what you said

[59:42] about when we were fully insured and we had the clinic operating.

[59:47] We didn't have access to all the data.

[59:51] That was sickness on that data.

[59:54] Now we're self-insured.

[59:55] We own that data.

[59:56] So we could very succinctly tell somebody that utilizes

[1:00:03] the clinic compared to somebody that doesn't utilize the clinic.

[1:00:06] And what a difference that makes.

[1:00:08] So we're obviously making efforts regardless of budget.

[1:00:14] We're just start getting these more

[1:00:18] people engaged in that clinic and ways to do that.

[1:00:21]

[1:00:26] And I would say that it's working because now we're

[1:00:29] running into the challenge of it's hard to get into the clinic

[1:00:33] because we went from people getting used to

[1:00:35] and starting to use it to now heavily using it to where if we

[1:00:39] want to see more of that savings,

[1:00:40] we have to expand that opportunity for more

[1:00:42] of our employees to be able to get in and utilize that as well.

[1:00:47] So early in the presentation, when Mike mentioned the director

[1:00:51] to Director presentations and he talked about that

[1:00:55] the headwinds and the operating pressures,

[1:00:58] these six kind of stood out.

[1:01:01] The workforce costs are rising across every fund.

[1:01:07] It's the largest driver recruiting and retention.

[1:01:14] Turnover near 12% It's 102 to fill vacancies.

[1:01:21] It's just harder and harder to recruit growth ads

[1:01:27] like we mentioned growth ads, permanent obligations.

[1:01:30] We talked about Lane miles and 53 park acres,

[1:01:36] with roads and medians and those needed maintained.

[1:01:40] 15 subdivisions.

[1:01:42] Police calls are up 20% So public safety commitments

[1:01:49] exceed dedicated revenues.

[1:01:51] I've mentioned that.

[1:01:53] And then our aging assets and rising technology costs fleet.

[1:01:58] Our fleet average 14.2 years versus 7 and 1/2 to eight

[1:02:04] year target on replacing that.

[1:02:07] And that's one of those that we need to get

[1:02:11] back to when funding was.

[1:02:14] Budgeting was tough.

[1:02:16] I think fleet was and facilities was a good way to say, wow,

[1:02:22] those cars will last a little longer.

[1:02:25] So we won't fund that to a certain point.

[1:02:30] And then also mandates at work without the funding.

[1:02:34] As you can see, there's 40 law enforcement

[1:02:36] Bills, state housing laws.

[1:02:40] Water rules, all of that.

[1:02:42] We did also talk about delivering efficiencies

[1:02:46] as one of the pillars.

[1:02:48] And so it's great to see those are already taken hold

[1:02:55] with almost every department.

[1:02:58] It's just not enough right now to close a $6 million

[1:03:02] operating deficit.

[1:03:05] I just want to highlight that there's been an heavy effort

[1:03:08] across the organization, and we've

[1:03:11] been thrilled with the creativity

[1:03:14] and the recommendations the departments have found,

[1:03:18] and finding savings and efficiencies

[1:03:21] and taking things on our own that we've been able to create,

[1:03:25] whether it's help from it or efficiencies

[1:03:28] in reporting and finding ways with sometimes

[1:03:32] with other software or whatever it may be.

[1:03:36] I also want to reiterate that there's been a number of years

[1:03:40] where each of the departments have

[1:03:43] made small cuts to try and make each of those years efforts.

[1:03:48] And so where services maybe will reduce,

[1:03:52] there were two different time frames where police services

[1:03:56] were reduced to just to keep up with calls

[1:03:59] and all that continues to that to this point.

[1:04:06] It's not.

[1:04:07] When you look back at this, it's not surprising

[1:04:09] that where we are right now, if we take those one time requests

[1:04:13] and/or the personnel requests and then just the

[1:04:20] carry over with keeping everything

[1:04:22] flat that we're pushing, 18 million last year

[1:04:26] it was 14 million.

[1:04:27] And it was a little bit less the year before.

[1:04:29] And it's because these things have compounded.

[1:04:32] There's been years where when we purchase our vehicles,

[1:04:35] we know that we have to pay ourselves a certain amount

[1:04:38] every year so that when you have to replace that vehicle,

[1:04:41] you have that in the fund.

[1:04:43] And that doesn't mean that we replace exactly the same amount

[1:04:46] evenly divided every year of all of our vehicles

[1:04:49] or all of our equipment.

[1:04:50] So those fund balances grow.

[1:04:52] And in the past, those fund balances

[1:04:56] were the funds from those were used

[1:04:58] to help balance that year's budget

[1:05:02] and then never replenished.

[1:05:03] And so there's some of those types of things where.

[1:05:06] And it's not to say I'm not trying to say

[1:05:09] that was a poor decision.

[1:05:10] It's when yours are tight and trying to make

[1:05:13] those kinds of balancing.

[1:05:15] Sometimes that's what goes, oh, we don't have

[1:05:17] to spend that much this year.

[1:05:19] Can we make this work.

[1:05:20] Can we squeeze one more, one more

[1:05:21] year without adding that position,

[1:05:23] even though we're clearly beyond we can see it in the overtime.

[1:05:28] We can see it in the hours worked and the shifts

[1:05:31] and not being able to cover it depending on whatever area.

[1:05:34] But we make it work.

[1:05:35] And we make it work.

[1:05:36] And then we make it work.

[1:05:38] And all that continues to come compound

[1:05:41] into where we're at today.

[1:05:44] Also, some of the director, the director

[1:05:47] figures that were reported in the presentations

[1:05:50] to one another.

[1:05:52] Again subdivision growth.

[1:05:53] There's 15 new subdivisions plotted since January

[1:05:57] one of 25 annexations.

[1:06:02] City limit.

[1:06:02] It totals 41 3 square miles.

[1:06:08] You can see the fire response area is 80.4mi and EMS responses

[1:06:13] 649mi for every 100 new homes adds about 31% and annexation

[1:06:22] continues in multiple areas in town

[1:06:25] that just adds more pressure to fire the call volume.

[1:06:29] I won't read them all to you, but number 4,

[1:06:31] you can see the call volume up, police calls for service.

[1:06:36]

[1:06:39] Everything is rising and the infrastructure

[1:06:44] based on annexation and growth.

[1:06:46] And that also has street lights, all that.

[1:06:53] So growth adds those reoccurring costs as well that this

[1:07:05] is where we are right now.

[1:07:07]

[1:07:12] We get the director presentations.

[1:07:15] We get the Department submissions

[1:07:17] and line item reviews.

[1:07:19] We're going to go back in September

[1:07:21] and start to do some prioritizing

[1:07:24] and get some balancing done.

[1:07:28] And then we'll be back in October.

[1:07:30] The first part of November sit with you all kind of.

[1:07:37] See what we've done during that time

[1:07:39] and then come up with a solution, which

[1:07:41] we will to fix all of this.

[1:07:44]

[1:07:46] I would just add that and Jay touched

[1:07:50] on this at the very beginning.

[1:07:52] People hear a 300 million plus budget as a whole

[1:07:58] and think, well, OK with $360 million budget this year,

[1:08:04] whatever that may be this next year.

[1:08:07] And you think so.

[1:08:09] Out of that much, it's not hard to find 18 million.

[1:08:13] If you're thinking 300.

[1:08:15] But when you break it down and we're

[1:08:16] talking the structural deficit within the general fund,

[1:08:19] within the core areas of government

[1:08:22] that aren't, and you take out each enterprise fund.

[1:08:26] So all the utilities that separate

[1:08:28] take out all of the water and sewer you take out,

[1:08:32] of course, our solid waste and recycling,

[1:08:35] the community recreation center that's separate.

[1:08:38] You take all these out and you get to these core functions

[1:08:41] where it's limited and you're in the 50s and a million,

[1:08:46] not in 300 million.

[1:08:48] And you start trying to figure out, where this deficit

[1:08:52] continues to amplify.

[1:08:54] Each year that I talked about that becomes how much more slim

[1:09:01] it gets in trying to make those minor tweaks.

[1:09:04] And then you think about let's just

[1:09:07] say the million if everything it'll probably be less

[1:09:11] because we don't always have every one time

[1:09:14] ask in there or every personnel request.

[1:09:17] But I will say these personnel requests

[1:09:19] aren't just the wish list.

[1:09:21] This is a fire department that knows we need x amount,

[1:09:25] but we're only asking for this amount for this year.

[1:09:28] This is a police department doing the same thing,

[1:09:30] knowing that if at any given time

[1:09:33] we have 15 sworn officers or so that are deployable,

[1:09:37] we know we need to be about 165 deployable.

[1:09:40] So you really need to be around 180 or so.

[1:09:43] And we're in the 1 1 30 seconds and then

[1:09:46] we have, at any given time, not that amount

[1:09:50] to be deployable at that time.

[1:09:53] Still just asking for a certain amount for each.

[1:09:56] For the next year.

[1:09:57] Not that whole gap.

[1:09:59] When we choose.

[1:10:00] Even though we.

[1:10:02] It might not be realistic.

[1:10:04] Even if the money were there not to go after

[1:10:07] or not to try and budget for more than a certain amount

[1:10:12] that we know we wouldn't be able to recruit in a given year.

[1:10:15] But we use that money for something else,

[1:10:17] or something new means it's not there when

[1:10:20] we get to that future year.

[1:10:22] And so all those things are kind of multiplied.

[1:10:24] And when you get to that 18 or so million

[1:10:27] and you start thinking, we have a debt payment of a million,

[1:10:29] we have 3.3 million to the rural we can go down the line.

[1:10:36] And even though we've added X amount for revenue,

[1:10:39] we've added X amount for efficiencies,

[1:10:41] we're still not catching up.

[1:10:43] And so I know this sounds more like it

[1:10:47] sounds very doom and gloom.

[1:10:48] It's meant to just show how this has happened over time

[1:10:53] and why it's important that as we go into our 2027 budget, one,

[1:10:58] we want to be very mindful of what we recommend

[1:11:00] when it comes to fund balance.

[1:11:02] We've talked about that.

[1:11:03] I won't reiterate that and don't want you to be surprised

[1:11:06] as that's a portion of it.

[1:11:08] It obviously doesn't address at all.

[1:11:10] It also means that some of those bigger discussions

[1:11:12] we've been having as we relook at our economic development

[1:11:17] efforts along the riverfront and the agreements we have,

[1:11:20] we have to relook at those.

[1:11:21] We don't want to just continue as is

[1:11:24] without making a different steps to seek out different solutions.

[1:11:30] It also means that we have to look more regionally

[1:11:34] and how we work with our partners

[1:11:35] when it comes to where we are providing a service,

[1:11:38] not just within the city limits, but in a very large area

[1:11:43] outside of those limits.

[1:11:45] We've talked about that with the rural fire district.

[1:11:48] We have that agreement.

[1:11:52] We do need to provide them the two year notice.

[1:11:55] If you remember, that is a staff notice.

[1:11:59] Whether it doesn't necessarily come from the council.

[1:12:02] It comes from the fire chief.

[1:12:04] And I just want to give you a heads

[1:12:05] up that we want that we are going to plan to give

[1:12:08] them that letter of notice.

[1:12:10] And just to clarify, it's not a notice

[1:12:12] of we don't want to contract with the rural fire.

[1:12:16] It's just over the next two years,

[1:12:18] we have to get to an arrangement that works for covering

[1:12:22] and renewing that agreement.

[1:12:25] But without giving that notice, it makes it very difficult

[1:12:29] to take steps, actionable steps to actually change

[1:12:34] that and work towards it.

[1:12:35] So again, our letter coming from our chief of the fire department

[1:12:40] to the rural district would simply cover the fact

[1:12:43] that we are completely open to continuing to contract

[1:12:48] for the rural district.

[1:12:49] But we need to renegotiate this agreement within the next two

[1:12:52] years to be able to continue to do that where it's not

[1:12:55] at a loss to citizens of Grand Junction and the services

[1:13:01] that we are providing out of the jail.

[1:13:04] So there are multiple components we are coming through.

[1:13:08] Also looking at dissecting what parts of the increase expenses

[1:13:15] that we talked about that are outpacing revenues

[1:13:17] are tied to growth.

[1:13:19] And then which parts are things that we've added that might not

[1:13:22] be tied to growth, where we might have to have discussions

[1:13:25] about whether or not those are things we continue or we adjust

[1:13:29] or things like that.

[1:13:30] So again, we'll be coming in October

[1:13:32] with all those recommendations, and

[1:13:34] we're working heavily on that.

[1:13:36] Now we don't have all those outlined.

[1:13:38] Usually by the time we would do this, we would do that,

[1:13:41] but it wouldn't be until October.

[1:13:42] We just chose to come earlier to talk

[1:13:45] about why we're running into this on an annual basis

[1:13:49] and be open.

[1:13:51] Because sometimes in times like this,

[1:13:53] it's where we have to say no to some good ideas

[1:13:55] to make sure we get everything structurally

[1:13:58] sound to be able to continue to provide

[1:14:00] the services at a high level.

[1:14:03] So happy to take any questions.

[1:14:06] We've got a lot of people here that we can call upon.

[1:14:10] But again, we're not at the point of the line

[1:14:12] item recommendations.

[1:14:14] Just really just big picture.

[1:14:18] Council Member Stan, did you have something.

[1:14:19] Yeah I think that we really need to start having conversations

[1:14:23] in earnest about funding some kind of study

[1:14:25] about what it would look like to form a fire district

[1:14:28] and remove that from the city.

[1:14:30] It's one of our biggest.

[1:14:32] I mean, it's not that we don't want to.

[1:14:34] It's not that we don't want you, but it would give the district

[1:14:38] the ability to go to taxpayers and to ask for the taxes

[1:14:43] that they need to be able to fund this.

[1:14:45] It would give much more flexibility

[1:14:47] when it comes to setting pay and not

[1:14:50] having to have it compete with or inflate

[1:14:54] other departments here.

[1:14:56] I mean, it would also potentially create

[1:14:58] some solutions for how much we're doing elsewhere,

[1:15:01] but the city's not getting paid for everything

[1:15:03] that was presented here.

[1:15:05] Really, the biggest potential impact

[1:15:10] would be not having the city continue

[1:15:13] to saddle the entirety of the metro areas, not the entirety.

[1:15:18] That's unfair, but to saddle so much of the entire region's

[1:15:23] fire and EMS needs.

[1:15:25] And I don't see I imagine that what you're going to bring

[1:15:28] to us for 2027 is going to be a short term

[1:15:31] solution for this budget, but we are not

[1:15:34] going to be able to continue to short term solution

[1:15:36] our way through this kind of a structural deficit, when

[1:15:39] so much of that deficit is coming

[1:15:40] from our fire department and our fire assistance

[1:15:46] that we're providing.

[1:15:47] I don't know why we're not having this conversation very

[1:15:49] in earnest and very soon, and why we're not looking at using

[1:15:53] some of our reserve to authorize some study to start looking

[1:15:58] at what that would look like.

[1:15:59] So that will be part of our recommendation coming in.

[1:16:03] We're definitely having those conversations with our partners

[1:16:06] a little more informally before we

[1:16:09] look at a more formal process.

[1:16:11] But you're 100% right, Councilman,

[1:16:14] that when I talk about the fire service

[1:16:17] and how we work with our partners in the long run.

[1:16:22] That's not a fix in just the 27 budget.

[1:16:24] That's a bigger picture, multi-year fix

[1:16:27] that takes multiple years to get from here to there.

[1:16:31] And we have to get going on that and our chief's

[1:16:37] done a great job of beginning to reach out with our partners,

[1:16:42] gather some support because it's not something we can do alone.

[1:16:46] It definitely has to be with some of those partners.

[1:16:49] And we're getting there's a reception

[1:16:51] to taking those next steps.

[1:16:52] I don't want to speak for any of those partners yet,

[1:16:54] but there's reception and taking that.

[1:16:56] But it would include bringing an outside group in

[1:16:59] to work with not just the city, but the other entities that are

[1:17:03] involved in that transition.

[1:17:05] Because you've got to comb through what

[1:17:07] the adequate funding is in the long term, how to merge assets,

[1:17:13] how to actually go to the multiple areas

[1:17:17] that would be involved, how other districts

[1:17:19] could come in the future.

[1:17:21] There's a lot of layers to that, but you're 100% right.

[1:17:24] Without getting started on that, we perpetuate

[1:17:27] what we're facing right now.

[1:17:29] Yeah the other piece of this, though,

[1:17:30] is that I think it's the best solution for our region.

[1:17:37] I think it's the best solution for the city

[1:17:38] and for the city's budget situation.

[1:17:40] But if it doesn't work.

[1:17:43] We also need to be looking right now at a parallel question,

[1:17:47] which is how do we go to the voters for an increase

[1:17:51] to our public safety tax because of all the issues

[1:17:54] that we see with the budget.

[1:17:56] One of the most significant is the fact

[1:18:00] that our public safety tax is not meeting

[1:18:03] our public safety needs.

[1:18:05] And so we can do a bunch of things

[1:18:07] to fix the rest of the budget.

[1:18:10] But that's the place where there's the most opportunity

[1:18:12] and I can't see going to the public and saying,

[1:18:15] hey, we need a general tax increase for general city

[1:18:18] services because that does not move voters,

[1:18:22] does not convince voters.

[1:18:23] The public safety sure does.

[1:18:24] And I don't want us to wait until we conduct

[1:18:28] a very prolonged process, looking at the potential

[1:18:32] for a fire district and not simultaneously

[1:18:34] look at what would we need.

[1:18:36] If that proves to not be a viable option, what would

[1:18:39] we need to be going to the voters

[1:18:41] for from a public safety tax standpoint.

[1:18:44] And we know that when we did the last, when we did twoby in 2019,

[1:18:48] we didn't ask for what we needed.

[1:18:49] We asked for less than what we projected we would need

[1:18:52] for public safety, knowing that we would have a future ask

[1:18:55] if all things continued equal and they

[1:18:58] haven't just continued equal, they've been exacerbated.

[1:19:02] So I would urge that we don't put one on the back burner

[1:19:08] while we pursue the other, but rather we're examining both

[1:19:10] of them as potential options for as soon

[1:19:15] as we can get it in front of voters.

[1:19:19] And I would just add, one of the things we want to do in a very

[1:19:26] transparent way is show everything that's

[1:19:31] added to the show, how we're spending those funds show where

[1:19:34] we're short, show where our efficiencies have been made,

[1:19:37] show where the growth and revenue has been made so

[1:19:40] that when we do get to some point where we have to do well,

[1:19:44] when we do potentially have to put an ask out there,

[1:19:48] there's a lot of understanding of all the things we've done.

[1:19:52] First to be able to then ask for that trust and that commitment

[1:19:57] of the public that we've made these efficiencies we've

[1:20:01] utilized new revenue in this way.

[1:20:03] We've sought out other opportunities and partnership

[1:20:07] to lessen the load.

[1:20:10] But this is what it takes to provide

[1:20:12] that level of service and the expectation

[1:20:14] that our residents have.

[1:20:16] Council Member Kennedy.

[1:20:17] Yes, we've been talking about this for several years now.

[1:20:20] I remember when we were talking to Cliff,

[1:20:22] looking at Clifton fire for a while,

[1:20:24] and some of the challenges there.

[1:20:25] We were talking about what a district might look like then,

[1:20:28] and certainly over the years, we've

[1:20:29] talked with the local about that in conjunction

[1:20:33] with potential other, things that they're

[1:20:36] looking at employee collective bargaining incentive.

[1:20:38] So I think that the appetite is there.

[1:20:41] I think it certainly is a good opportunity.

[1:20:44] And I think that the situation that we're looking

[1:20:46] at with this budget gives us a great motivation

[1:20:50] to actually have that discussion,

[1:20:52] as council member stout pointed out.

[1:20:54] It's a good time to do that.

[1:20:56] And also a great point on that to be from 2019.

[1:21:00] That was as that public safety tax came out.

[1:21:04] So much of that.

[1:21:06] Well, first we asked for less than what

[1:21:09] the need was because it was just about well, what do we think

[1:21:13] will pass.

[1:21:13] Because that's always that challenge.

[1:21:16] It was just like when we tried to build the police department

[1:21:19] the first time, and we were asked by the public

[1:21:23] to not build it at that scale.

[1:21:25] It was greatly brought down to a smaller level.

[1:21:28] And now we're looking at an enormous expense

[1:21:30] for a police annex just so we can continue services.

[1:21:33] So when we don't ask for what we need.

[1:21:36] That puts us, I think in a position

[1:21:38] where we have to come back again later with our hat in our hands.

[1:21:41] So if there's an opportunity this time

[1:21:43] to say to really rightsize this, not that it I mean,

[1:21:46] it's going to be uncomfortable for all of us,

[1:21:48] but I think that's important to look at that and to say, let's

[1:21:52] not just think about OK, what will pass.

[1:21:54] Let's think about just doing a really, really good job

[1:21:57] of explaining what the real need is, because so much

[1:22:00] of that to be went to our building,

[1:22:04] a new fire stations to dispatch that type of thing.

[1:22:08] Really, the amount that went to the police department

[1:22:10] in particular was relatively small.

[1:22:13] And I don't think that the public totally

[1:22:15] understands the way those funds got distributed or distributed.

[1:22:19] So that's a challenge as well.

[1:22:23] So yes, I agree with council member on those two issues.

[1:22:25] The one thing I would ask Mike on this, when we come back,

[1:22:29] we talk about this again on that breakdown on that $6 million

[1:22:34] structural deficit.

[1:22:35] If there's a way you can give us a breakdown

[1:22:37] on what that's made up of as far as and you talked about some

[1:22:43] but what we can't avoid as far as contractual obligations

[1:22:47] debt service benefits and things like that.

[1:22:50] If just a better understanding of what that is.

[1:22:54] I mean, even though I mean, we have to take it on,

[1:22:57] it's not like we can't do that, but just so

[1:22:59] we understand what we're looking at and use that for framework

[1:23:02] as we go forward.

[1:23:03] Any other future decisions.

[1:23:05]

[1:23:09] Any other council comments or questions.

[1:23:12] Council Member belfus.

[1:23:14] Thank you.

[1:23:17] Well, I gotta say that the numbers and the turnover

[1:23:22] and the wage increases that we're looking at

[1:23:25] are not unique to City of Grand Junction.

[1:23:30] I mean, when I talk we have a lot of meetings.

[1:23:33] We go to the house, talk to what's going on

[1:23:36] and their companies and that sort of thing.

[1:23:39] And it's kind of in line with what

[1:23:41] I'm hearing in the community.

[1:23:43] I have it's kind of hard to imagine that the average

[1:23:48] business that's paying insurance benefits to their employees is

[1:23:54] paying $30,000 per employee per year, but we are in a very

[1:23:59] high health cost area.

[1:24:03] I worked in an area for a long time.

[1:24:06] So it's an ongoing problem.

[1:24:08] Nobody's figured it out yet.

[1:24:09] So it's very difficult. But if at all possible,

[1:24:14] it would like to have more detailed breakdowns of costs

[1:24:20] as far as benefits.

[1:24:21] Where we're at.

[1:24:25] Do we have I would ask you I mean,

[1:24:28] we have an aging population in Grand Junction.

[1:24:30] Do we have an aging workforce at the city.

[1:24:34] Are we going to see, a lot of people

[1:24:36] retiring in the future that would bring younger people in.

[1:24:41] That would be a lower end of the scales

[1:24:46] as far as salaries and wages go.

[1:24:49] What are the trends that we're looking at in the near future.

[1:24:53] I mean, we're in an area that we're at a crossroads

[1:24:57] where we gotta look pretty close at a lot of this stuff

[1:25:01] and ask a lot of questions.

[1:25:03] But we have to have really good data to do that.

[1:25:06] So just putting that out there.

[1:25:09]

[1:25:12] One thing during engineering and transportation director

[1:25:16] Paul's presentation to I think it was 25% of your staff

[1:25:22] is within a couple of years of retirement age.

[1:25:26] So to your point and also to your point of we're not.

[1:25:31] And I had it on my second slide about national trend.

[1:25:34] I was on a call today, a rating call to get those cops rated

[1:25:38] by S&P and talking about this structural deficit

[1:25:45] and what we're doing, trying to proactively address it.

[1:25:49] And they confirm that, yeah, we're not alone in this boat.

[1:25:55] That's what they talked to.

[1:25:56] That's what they do all day is talk to municipalities

[1:25:59] and governments.

[1:26:01] And they said, yeah, we're not alone in this to your point.

[1:26:04] Not unique for sure.

[1:26:06]

[1:26:08] Any other questions.

[1:26:09] Comments yeah.

[1:26:11] One quick one.

[1:26:12] I like what Catherine was getting at there as far

[1:26:18] as the trend, Mike and I know it's a lot to ask

[1:26:20] and I know nobody has a crystal ball.

[1:26:23] That's one of the things as we look at our trajectory,

[1:26:26] it's like, OK, if we structurally fix this step

[1:26:30] and say here.

[1:26:32] From what we know and what we can

[1:26:35] look at going forward to whatever

[1:26:37] extent is reasonable, right.

[1:26:39] It'd be fantastic if there was like a five

[1:26:42] year projection understanding with the understanding.

[1:26:45] Obviously, nobody knows what those future revenues

[1:26:48] and expenses will be, but with what we can know

[1:26:51] and what we can project based on where we're at, what can we

[1:26:55] do to course adjust to make sure if we

[1:26:58] do have deficits, that we can shrink them as we move forward.

[1:27:02] Yeah and we're happy to share what makes sense to get there.

[1:27:06] I just reiterate that we have 900 professionals

[1:27:10] and departments of finance and HR

[1:27:15] and working with Brown and Brown.

[1:27:18] So we're diving into all that level of detail on a full time,

[1:27:21] daily basis to get to do the recommendations

[1:27:25] that we bring to you all.

[1:27:26] So it's not being looked at or not being gone through,

[1:27:30] but it would take I mean, to go through it would take,

[1:27:37] more workshops than we could schedule in one year and hours

[1:27:40] to go through the level of that detail.

[1:27:43] So I hope there's trust in US that we have the right teams

[1:27:47] going through all that and then bringing those summaries of why.

[1:27:51] Here's what we have to recommend and

[1:27:53] here's what is leading to it.

[1:27:56] Today was not bringing you that level of detail

[1:27:59] because it was just framing the overall picture.

[1:28:01] But as we get into those recommendations,

[1:28:03] we'll definitely take these notes so that we

[1:28:05] can bring some level of detail.

[1:28:08] So you have more understanding approving or considering

[1:28:13] those recommendations for sure.

[1:28:16] So yeah, Jake, if you go back to the slide,

[1:28:19] that shows the kind of surplus and deficit over time.

[1:28:24]

[1:28:37] One four.

[1:28:39] Yeah So I guess my question is obviously this looks really bad,

[1:28:46] but you kind of alluded to these one time levers and deferrals

[1:28:52] that we made perhaps in some of those like years that look good.

[1:28:55] And I'm just trying to add context or understand

[1:28:58] the context of how much is that maybe juicing those 2021

[1:29:03] through 2024 numbers and maybe making that curve

[1:29:09] sharper than it is in reality.

[1:29:11] Like, do we have a handle on that.

[1:29:15] Yeah, I'll just say speaking for when I guess Mike and I

[1:29:19] last year jumping in.

[1:29:23] We were at a $10 million deficit and the budget process started.

[1:29:30] And by mostly doing one time of levers,

[1:29:36] we got that and brought council balanced budget.

[1:29:39] Not every year is going to be that much.

[1:29:43] But for instance, funding of facilities

[1:29:50] was pulled multiple years in a row.

[1:29:53] We're funding it to the point of $1.2 million per year.

[1:29:57] Now, many years.

[1:29:59] We have $0 for facility kind of preventative maintenance fleet.

[1:30:06] We mentioned fleet we were having.

[1:30:11] Some enterprise funds pick up some general fund costs

[1:30:14] because the enterprise funds operated at a surplus

[1:30:18] and there's some tie to maybe what the service was things

[1:30:26] like that add up in a big way.

[1:30:32] You won't miss anything.

[1:30:34] It's also accurate, though, that we had really healthy

[1:30:37] sales tax collections in 2021.

[1:30:41] Correct I mean, the economy was much better back then as well.

[1:30:46] Yeah double digit growth at a time

[1:30:50] before the expenses significantly grew.

[1:30:53] So not only inflation but prior to there was mention of 2B

[1:31:03] and yes, that I think we knew that we

[1:31:08] probably needed more at that point in time

[1:31:10] from what it sounds like.

[1:31:11] What we didn't know is what happened, a year later, and not

[1:31:16] only with following the pandemic and inflation and construction

[1:31:20] costs growing dramatically.

[1:31:22] When we're building fire stations but a massive increase

[1:31:27] in public safety salaries across the country,

[1:31:31] across the state that weren't factored into those projections

[1:31:35] and took a lot of that extra money

[1:31:37] that would have went to New employees,

[1:31:39] but it went to keeping up with those salaries

[1:31:42] and then construction costs and then all that kind of amplified

[1:31:45] at once.

[1:31:46] So yeah, you're right.

[1:31:48] 2021, some of those years, 2020 was

[1:31:51] a great revenue year, even though it was a tough year

[1:31:53] for a lot of people.

[1:31:54] But revenue wise it was great.

[1:31:57] And from about 2017 to that point,

[1:32:01] we were having in this whole area,

[1:32:03] we were having the highest year over year increases

[1:32:06] we had seen ever.

[1:32:07] And that was significant.

[1:32:10] And that was during a time where revenues

[1:32:13] were outpacing to some degree increase in fund balance.

[1:32:17] And then that took a big shift where expenses obviously

[1:32:21] went to outpacing those revenues even though they're growing,

[1:32:24] just not growing at those rapid at the same rates.

[1:32:27] Another thing that wasn't factored into the 2019 question

[1:32:30] was the number of public state, reactionary public safety bills

[1:32:36] that were going to be coming out of the legislature in ensuing

[1:32:39] years, and those made it lost a lot of officers or professionals

[1:32:43] who left our not just our department, but left the state.

[1:32:47] And then we had a number of unfunded mandates

[1:32:49] that were passed down from the state legislature to us

[1:32:52] and things that made our jobs more

[1:32:54] difficult from a municipal standpoint.

[1:32:56] So 20 the 2019 tax was helpful, but it

[1:33:02] didn't contemplate the full need in the first place.

[1:33:04] And then the need burgeoned after that.

[1:33:07] That's a great point.

[1:33:08] And as you all probably good from a public perspective too

[1:33:12] is part of the reason those salaries shot up

[1:33:15] across the board is because there were a large amount

[1:33:18] of vacancies being created, and then it

[1:33:20] becomes very difficult to find enough people who are qualified

[1:33:24] to do those jobs and willing to do those jobs with those added

[1:33:28] changes that came through state legislature

[1:33:32] and that compounded in a big way.

[1:33:35] And so none of that was foreseen or would have been in people's

[1:33:38] projections and really, really snuck

[1:33:41] up at a perfect storm of really added up to where we're at.

[1:33:49] I do want to address the thing that you said.

[1:33:52] Just before council member Nguyen spoke about you.

[1:33:54] Hopefully, trust us or you hope we trust you.

[1:33:59] And not only should you hope that we trust you,

[1:34:02] but it is built into the structure of our government

[1:34:04] that we should be relying on you as the experts and not.

[1:34:07] And I'd like to caution my colleagues that we not we

[1:34:10] not request so much detail level information

[1:34:13] that we're stepping into your territory

[1:34:17] and to operational matters.

[1:34:19] We need to maintain we stay in our lane

[1:34:25] and maintain our role as policymakers

[1:34:28] and take the information that you bring to us,

[1:34:30] ask clarifying questions, of course.

[1:34:31] And some level of additional detail is appropriate.

[1:34:35] But I would strongly caution us against delving

[1:34:38] so deep into this that we are interfering

[1:34:42] with the operational side of things

[1:34:44] and not behaving the policy role that we belong in.

[1:34:47]

[1:34:50] Any other questions or comments on this from council.

[1:34:54] Well, with that being said, thank

[1:34:56] you so much to staff on this.

[1:34:57] We know the lift is extremely heavy.

[1:35:00] Upper management budget team all the way

[1:35:03] down into the individual departments.

[1:35:05] We know this is a lot from top to bottom

[1:35:07] and there's a lot of sacrifices that are made.

[1:35:10] But we're extremely fortunate to have incredible people doing

[1:35:15] this and running these numbers to make

[1:35:16] sure that our city is in a great position moving forward.

[1:35:21] I think we'll wrap up that topic.

[1:35:22] With that being said, is anybody in need of a break at the moment

[1:35:26] About an hour and a half.

[1:35:27] Yeah so let's go ahead and take a 10 minute break,

[1:35:29] and we'll be back at 14 after.

[1:35:32]

[1:35:35] That sounds.

[1:35:38] Good I didn't say.

[1:35:49]

[1:46:19] We'll go over to financial policies and reporting overview.

[1:46:23] And city manager Bennett has an introduction.

[1:46:26] All right.

[1:46:26] Thank you.

[1:46:28] This item is really to give council a preview and a heads

[1:46:32] up on two things.

[1:46:34] The first is we've created a new financial dashboard that we

[1:46:39] plan to update every quarter.

[1:46:42] As you may recall, in our strategic plan planning process

[1:46:46] and some of our objectives, we had a goal to create something

[1:46:50] beyond just our revenue report.

[1:46:52] Beyond our budget overview.

[1:46:55] And so our Jay and the team have worked hard on creating this.

[1:47:01] And Jay is going to give you a preview of that.

[1:47:04] We plan to go live with it tomorrow.

[1:47:06] And so he's just pulled up actually

[1:47:10] what we would turn on live on our website,

[1:47:13] like all of our other dashboards.

[1:47:15] They're living.

[1:47:17] And as we get feedback along the way, as we use it more

[1:47:24] because these aren't while these are very public

[1:47:26] and for people to gather information,

[1:47:29] we're creating them in a way that's twofold, where it's very

[1:47:31] useful for us as staff to utilize

[1:47:34] for you as counsel to utilize.

[1:47:35] And so as we do that, just like we've

[1:47:38] done with the revenue dashboard, we've added components.

[1:47:41] Our partners have received lodging tax like the airlines.

[1:47:44] And the Sports Commission had some good feedback.

[1:47:47] So we added some components where

[1:47:50] you can break it down in our lodging tax that

[1:47:54] goes to them on that report.

[1:47:56] So just like those with this revenue report,

[1:47:58] we anticipate that we'll probably have some additions

[1:48:02] and improvements along the way.

[1:48:05] But just going to walk you through a preview of that.

[1:48:07] And then second to that we have internal financial policies.

[1:48:12] These are things that get reviewed in our annual audits.

[1:48:16] The auditors look for very specific things and policies

[1:48:20] and ensure that we are actually following those policies.

[1:48:24] And we had some discussion in the last year

[1:48:29] during council meetings about creating

[1:48:32] a adding a little more structure or adding to a debt policy.

[1:48:38] And so that's one of the additions we've made.

[1:48:42] We wanted to give you a preview of as well.

[1:48:44] And again, those are internal policies

[1:48:46] that get double checked by our auditors each year

[1:48:49] and continually adjusted.

[1:48:53] But that was a little bit more of a public discussion.

[1:48:56] We'll go over that with you.

[1:48:56] So Jason going to walk through both of those

[1:48:58] and then get any feedback that council may have.

[1:49:03] OK thank you.

[1:49:06] So in the vein of again of transparency

[1:49:10] and fiscal responsibility, we've created this.

[1:49:14] This is a mid-year financial report.

[1:49:15] But we will report this quarterly.

[1:49:18] So it'll be the quarterly financial report.

[1:49:21] There's a lot of ways that we can present.

[1:49:26] You've seen the comprehensive annual financial report.

[1:49:30] That's probably the most transparent document we have,

[1:49:34] but the most hard, difficult to comprehend

[1:49:39] finance report from a public standpoint, there's a lot to it.

[1:49:43] There's pages and pages and pages.

[1:49:45] So we've created this.

[1:49:47] And trying to get feedback just to see

[1:49:50] if this hits home for a very high overview of where we're at.

[1:49:56] It consists of multiple tabs across the top and overview.

[1:50:03] Just real quick here.

[1:50:04] You can see that what our general fund adopted budget is,

[1:50:09] how much we've spent so far and mid-year,

[1:50:14] how much of that appropriation have we spent,

[1:50:17] and what's that look like from the same period of 2025?

[1:50:21] So once again, a very high level.

[1:50:23] But it does tell a story.

[1:50:27] It would tell a lot different story

[1:50:28] if it said that we're 75% spent mid-year

[1:50:32] and we're 22% over the prior year, for example.

[1:50:38] Just a little narrative on where the six months landed and then

[1:50:44] we really as you keep going into it,

[1:50:47] it'll just now we're talking about the different types

[1:50:52] of funds the general fund, the first responder

[1:50:54] fund, enterprise funds.

[1:50:56]

[1:51:02] Different ways of looking at this.

[1:51:03] Again, here's just a different kind of chart.

[1:51:06] We've included all these because with the Mike said,

[1:51:09] with the revenue report, things are going to resonate

[1:51:11] even as we use this ourselves.

[1:51:13] We're like what.

[1:51:14] Be more helpful if we could break out

[1:51:18] what enterprise funds and this overview

[1:51:22] and see we do that over here.

[1:51:23] But on the next tab we talked about all funds,

[1:51:30] how much revenue we've seen to date,

[1:51:32] what percentage of that and the tax revenue

[1:51:36] that we received to date.

[1:51:38] And again, it goes through the different types

[1:51:42] of funds the general fund, internal service

[1:51:44] fund funds, just different ways of looking at this.

[1:51:49] Again, we have data associated with these dropdowns,

[1:51:55] and those are a lot of things that we've been asked to enhance

[1:51:57] on the revenue report.

[1:52:00]

[1:52:05] As categories of revenue.

[1:52:07] So you can go to what makes up those revenues.

[1:52:09] And you can go down and see what the different categories

[1:52:14] on all of this is.

[1:52:16] And then we'll go through it all.

[1:52:17] But just to give you a good idea.

[1:52:19] So tomorrow you could go through it if you

[1:52:21] think we're on the right track.

[1:52:23]

[1:52:25] The general fund we did an overview.

[1:52:27] This is going to go more in depth

[1:52:29] to it on the general fund tab, now we're breaking it

[1:52:32] out by different departments.

[1:52:36] Based on the largest spend.

[1:52:39] So the police budget compared to what they spent this year

[1:52:43] and on down the line, different ways to look at that.

[1:52:48] Your budget versus expenditures numerically percent spent

[1:52:53] and how much is remaining.

[1:52:55]

[1:52:58] Categories, labor and benefits interfund charges capital.

[1:53:03] Again, it's looking for that feedback.

[1:53:07] Then we'll drive down into the public safety tax

[1:53:11] fund, the first responder fund.

[1:53:14] And same kind of data I could go through it

[1:53:20] all but it's the same stuff but just

[1:53:23] a different way, just different segment that we're looking at.

[1:53:28] But we are showing the spend between police and fire.

[1:53:33]

[1:53:37] A little the narrative enterprise

[1:53:39] funds is the same way.

[1:53:41] Now we break down from the overview.

[1:53:43] We just had enterprise funds.

[1:53:44] Now we're going to break those out

[1:53:46] so you can see them separately.

[1:53:48] But it's the see where we're at revenues versus expenditures.

[1:53:55] Keep in mind if you're looking at it tomorrow the.

[1:54:00] Supplementals that we've done have not been posted.

[1:54:02] So that's why it looks like there's a lot more not enough

[1:54:06] revenue spent appropriated.

[1:54:09]

[1:54:12] Again going down the funds internal service funds.

[1:54:17]

[1:54:20] And our insurance funds.

[1:54:22]

[1:54:25] So that's how we have it set up.

[1:54:27] And just looking for feedback if that's the right track.

[1:54:31] Like I said, we're going to post this tomorrow

[1:54:33] and we will keep enhancing that and maybe

[1:54:37] there's some repetitive stuff that will tease out of there,

[1:54:42] maybe how to dig a little deeper into some of that stuff.

[1:54:45] But this is how we plan to present the financial report.

[1:54:48] We also have it in pamphlet form that we could distribute.

[1:54:55] And we realize this is a quick glance tonight,

[1:54:59] but all of our dashboards, as we've said a few times,

[1:55:02] we'll continue to update them.

[1:55:04] So I think as you have more time to spend with it,

[1:55:07] or as you hear from members of the public,

[1:55:10] you get any at the end of any given workshop,

[1:55:12] bring it up if you have.

[1:55:14] Hey, could we break it down this way or any questions

[1:55:16] or suggestions that we can talk about as a group in the future.

[1:55:19] We don't expect you to have a bunch of feedback

[1:55:22] in a quick glimpse glance at the moment, but if you do,

[1:55:26] I'm happy to take any.

[1:55:27] It was more of a heads up that we've got that first draft,

[1:55:31] and we'll be releasing that tomorrow

[1:55:33] and obviously we can build upon that as we move forward.

[1:55:39] Councilman Davis.

[1:55:41] Yeah can I just ask, is this modeled

[1:55:43] after a particular template that a lot of other cities use

[1:55:47] or a particular city.

[1:55:50] Do we.

[1:55:50]

[1:55:53] Know what this is.

[1:55:56] We tried to model it off of our revenue report

[1:55:59] for consistency, the revenue report,

[1:56:01] meaning the sales tax report that we've also put online

[1:56:04] now where it's modeled after that when

[1:56:09] we talked about efficiencies and we

[1:56:11] could do some things in-house.

[1:56:15] There used to be and the city had purchased it

[1:56:18] back in the day, as they say, a software,

[1:56:23] very expensive software that would do the same thing.

[1:56:27] You can keep drilling in and get to what kind of information

[1:56:32] you're looking for.

[1:56:33] This is set up in a way that just categorizes things

[1:56:36] by the way that we look at life structures,

[1:56:41] types of funds like general fund,

[1:56:42] enterprise funds, internal service funds.

[1:56:47] Let's take Scott Hawkins, IT director.

[1:56:53] They've been doing these.

[1:56:56] We meet with them and tell them what we want

[1:56:58] and what we're looking at.

[1:56:59] And Brandon, our deputy finance director, he had a ton of input

[1:57:07] in this about the kind of questions that he hears

[1:57:10] and what's important from what he hears from the public

[1:57:13] and what auditors and the say so.

[1:57:18] And then I would say, going back to strategic planning,

[1:57:21] some of the questions were we report on our revenues,

[1:57:25] but we're not necessarily except for once a year

[1:57:28] reporting on what the total expenses are.

[1:57:31] And so being able to see revenues and expenses together

[1:57:34] on a quarterly basis throughout the year creates,

[1:57:37] creates a lot of additional transparency,

[1:57:40] but also ability to measure where we're at.

[1:57:45] And then we'll have the ability to add some narrative,

[1:57:48] because sometimes there's certain larger

[1:57:51] expenses that we have that only happen in the fourth quarter.

[1:57:54] So it might look, or there's some large expenses that happen

[1:57:58] at the beginning of the year.

[1:57:59] So it might look like, oh, we're out.

[1:58:01] So we can add those types of notes

[1:58:02] just like we do in some of our dashboards

[1:58:05] or the dashboard for the strategic planning

[1:58:07] update, revenue report, all those things.

[1:58:12] So yeah, my compliments Jay.

[1:58:16] Really and what you just said, that last piece

[1:58:18] about the questions that were being asked and paying attention

[1:58:23] to that from both staff and auditors, that shows that

[1:58:27] is clear.

[1:58:27] So sincerely my compliments to staff.

[1:58:31] My sincere appreciation when we talk

[1:58:32] about government transparency.

[1:58:34] This is speaking directly to that.

[1:58:37] And I sincerely appreciate it, especially that example just

[1:58:40] looking up there at that the police and fire funding

[1:58:44] and being able to drill down the fact that this is updated

[1:58:48] quarterly, I think what this will probably

[1:58:50] lead to is a lot better questions from those

[1:58:52] that are really interested in, hey,

[1:58:54] what's going on with the city.

[1:58:55] How are tax dollars being spent.

[1:58:58] And that type of transparency where they're

[1:59:01] like, OK, that's where it's at.

[1:59:02] And then they may ask some questions that they might not

[1:59:05] have ever thought of otherwise.

[1:59:06] So I think this is a great tool.

[1:59:08] I really, really appreciate this.

[1:59:09] And obviously a lot of work went into this and it shows.

[1:59:13] So thank you.

[1:59:14] Thank you Mary.

[1:59:15] Yeah can you scroll to I guess maybe public safety.

[1:59:20]

[1:59:23] Downtown yeah.

[1:59:24] Just to the bar comments I'm wondering like.

[1:59:28] If there would be a way to add a kind of dashed line,

[1:59:33] just showing where I know spend is not linear across the year,

[1:59:40] but show where this report is kind of reporting

[1:59:43] to in terms take our adopted budget divided by 12,

[1:59:48] this is end of May show where that line would

[1:59:52] be I guess in the budget just to get a sense for OK fires

[1:59:56] slightly ahead in this quarter which maybe means there's going

[2:00:01] to be less cost in the last quarter or something like what

[2:00:05] I'm going to get instead of just saying, yeah, 50% your target.

[2:00:11] Yeah, visually depict that instead of only

[2:00:14] have it kind of in the tables.

[2:00:16] That was kind of my thought as well.

[2:00:17] I think this is incredible.

[2:00:19] I think seeing possibly a line graph that has projected spend

[2:00:23] throughout the year with an actual spin

[2:00:26] kind of aligned to see where we're dipping ahead,

[2:00:29] where we're dipping below.

[2:00:31] I think from a public perspective they could see,

[2:00:35] oh, they've only spent 48% So there's so much more room

[2:00:38] for these other services, these other things,

[2:00:41] when in all reality we might have

[2:00:43] a big spend around the corner.

[2:00:44] So a little better narrative around that could be helpful.

[2:00:48] But otherwise, I think this is fantastic between this

[2:00:51] and the sales tax reports we get and that are going

[2:00:54] on the website, I think it's just such a great picture

[2:00:57] to paint for our community.

[2:00:59] Yeah, thanks.

[2:01:00] And that's a good suggestions.

[2:01:02] And we could do that.

[2:01:04] And those trend lines where are you at

[2:01:06] compared to where you should be at this time of year.

[2:01:10] Yes, we can definitely work on that.

[2:01:14] Any other questions or comments from council.

[2:01:16]

[2:01:20] All right, we'll move on then to city council communications.

[2:01:24]

[2:01:27] We did have one more on just a brief overview of it's still.

[2:01:33] Oh yeah.

[2:01:34] Yeah I'm sorry.

[2:01:35] I should have thrown that back to you.

[2:01:37] City manager Bennett.

[2:01:39] Yeah that's OK.

[2:01:40] This will be quick.

[2:01:43] We have gone through and updated all of our financial policies

[2:01:49] into one document.

[2:01:50] We've added the debt policy that was questioned

[2:01:55] at a city council meeting.

[2:01:57] I think that was questioned about the state of New York and

[2:02:01] the parameters that they used.

[2:02:04] I'll say that our policy and the recommendations on a jet policy

[2:02:11] is not quite as prescriptive as.

[2:02:16] You can't go over a certain percentage of your revenues

[2:02:20] because they feel that every organization is different

[2:02:25] with different revenue streams.

[2:02:28] And so the policy that we have is kind of that talks a lot

[2:02:34] about what we do internally.

[2:02:37] It talks about the role of council

[2:02:39] and when we bring that to you, and what kind of debt

[2:02:46] can we even bring.

[2:02:47] It's long term financing for capital projects.

[2:02:50] I think I mentioned that I'm going to ask a sales

[2:02:53] tax for general government.

[2:02:55] We don't just go get a debt because we're

[2:02:57] facing a structural those kind of things.

[2:02:59] And what type of debt would it be.

[2:03:04] Would it be a CLP and why.

[2:03:05] But all of this stuff is a framework that we then

[2:03:09] bring to council to decide.

[2:03:11] But one of the things that the policy, the more

[2:03:15] prescriptive part is where they talk about what percentage,

[2:03:20] but how much debt is too much.

[2:03:22] And is it based on how much revenue that your government's

[2:03:26] receiving.

[2:03:27] And even S&P stopped doing it that way.

[2:03:32] Measuring it that way because there's so

[2:03:34] many variables that go into it.

[2:03:38] But a rule of thumb that will start that I think

[2:03:42] would be important that we should

[2:03:44] it's bringing this to you as part of the policy,

[2:03:47] not just where we're at.

[2:03:49] Like, what would this debt do compared

[2:03:51] to where we're at from revenue.

[2:03:53] And for example, below 10% is commonly viewed.

[2:03:57] This is from the GFOA commonly viewed

[2:04:00] as conservative debt burden.

[2:04:03] A 10 to 15 suggests debt should receive closer scrutiny,

[2:04:07] and above 15% to 20% often raises concerns about reduced

[2:04:12] budget flexibility.

[2:04:14] The cities right now are.

[2:04:16] Our debt burden is 7.96% of revenues.

[2:04:22] However, if we had two Rios we're paying it.

[2:04:28] So if I include that it goes to 8.59% even though that's a.

[2:04:36] Not considered necessarily city of Grand Junction debt.

[2:04:39] But we're paying it.

[2:04:41] So from that standpoint, we do have a policy.

[2:04:45] It's several pages long.

[2:04:47]

[2:04:51] And this is I'll just go just show you the.

[2:04:54]

[2:04:56] That didn't change right.

[2:04:59]

[2:05:06] Probably so can you adopt that policy one that you saw in there

[2:05:10] are the financial policies.

[2:05:12] Is that able to be shared or was it

[2:05:17] financial policies is on the same page.

[2:05:23] When you set up the quarterly financial report,

[2:05:27] it was on that same.

[2:05:29] You said, oh, that's not it.

[2:05:31] And then you went to the next tab that I'm sharing.

[2:05:35] OK OK.

[2:05:37]

[2:05:40] I'll talk to it.

[2:05:41] It's really we talk about the purpose of debt.

[2:05:45] And again, this is a lot of internal stuff for our staff.

[2:05:50] Amen OK.

[2:05:55] So I did Mike did it.

[2:05:58] Mike, it's on your computer.

[2:05:59]

[2:06:02] Again, we don't have to go through this, but.

[2:06:05] No, this is staff.

[2:06:06] What are we using debt for.

[2:06:10] The scope of this policy.

[2:06:14] The responsibilities.

[2:06:15]

[2:06:23] Most of this is really common sense

[2:06:25] that any prudent municipality is going to use.

[2:06:32] I think ultimately we can't go issue debt

[2:06:35] without coming to council and explaining why

[2:06:39] we're doing the debt issuance.

[2:06:41] Our recommendation a lot of this is framed around just that.

[2:06:47] What do we bring.

[2:06:49] Have we done have we evaluated financing

[2:06:52] alternatives, for instance.

[2:06:54] The financial analysis that supports the debt.

[2:06:58] Those kind of things are in the policy

[2:07:00] that we're doing as staff to bring to the city council.

[2:07:05] That makes you better decision makers

[2:07:07] when it comes to that, including the kind of that percentage

[2:07:11] of our total revenues.

[2:07:16] We talk about there's an internal controls,

[2:07:21] as I mentioned financing methods general obligation bonds.

[2:07:28] Refunding of debt credit ratings.

[2:07:33] How we handle the bond proceeds.

[2:07:35] That's in the policy.

[2:07:37] And continuing disclosure.

[2:07:40] What we have to do from a reporting standpoint

[2:07:42] to the MSB, who's the regulatory agency or bond issuances

[2:07:52] and then reporting on that debt.

[2:07:55] And that's pretty much it for the desk.

[2:07:57] But we do have one.

[2:07:58] It's in writing.

[2:08:01] That's how it's framed for us to use.

[2:08:06] Any questions on that.

[2:08:09] Council Kennedy.

[2:08:10] Yeah, just one quick one.

[2:08:11] I just one of the things that and I know it's not currently

[2:08:14] in place, but one of the things I just

[2:08:15] wanted to be careful of because there's some conversation

[2:08:18] around when this policy was first being talked about,

[2:08:21] is it just going to limit the city's ability

[2:08:25] to utilize every financing option that's available to us

[2:08:29] out there, like certificates of participation and things

[2:08:32] like that.

[2:08:32] So I just if there is a time that we consider that that's

[2:08:36] just something I think that we need to be careful of

[2:08:38] is to make sure that we're keeping

[2:08:39] all options on the table to keep ourselves

[2:08:41] as agile as we can financially.

[2:08:44] That's why we didn't make this prescriptive,

[2:08:47] so to speak, to where you must do it this way.

[2:08:51] We're keeping all those this is what

[2:08:55] this does is keeps everything, all those options open.

[2:08:59] It's very, very high level.

[2:09:05] Any other council comments or questions.

[2:09:08] Did you have anything to add to that.

[2:09:10] City manager Bennett.

[2:09:12] I would just say that in addition

[2:09:13] to keeping the flexibility, it does provide some structure so

[2:09:17] that when we are bringing a recommendation for taking

[2:09:21] on debt, that there are very specific things

[2:09:22] we cover as a whole.

[2:09:24] We look at the total debt, not just that visually

[2:09:29] and how we look at are we staying with under that

[2:09:32] 10% It's not keeping us there.

[2:09:36] But we at least should be making a decision,

[2:09:38] knowingly understanding if we were to go beyond that.

[2:09:42] Also what the schedules are I mean, just

[2:09:45] making sure that we are covering the full aspect of how

[2:09:50] that particular any new debt affects the total budget

[2:09:54] or any other debt that we have.

[2:09:56] Everything's on a different schedule.

[2:09:58] Sometimes new debt as well is totally

[2:10:00] tied to a fully funded, approved, voter approved revenue

[2:10:04] that's going to cover that versus something

[2:10:06] like a certificate of participation,

[2:10:08] where we're saying we're going to take existing revenue

[2:10:11] and dedicate it to a new payment without a new source of revenue.

[2:10:15] So being able to dissect all that

[2:10:17] and make sure we're considering before we make those decisions

[2:10:21] is really the basis of this and following those best practices,

[2:10:25] so that we're making sure we're analyzing the whole and not

[2:10:29] just one of any particular.

[2:10:32]

[2:10:35] Well, thank you so much for listening.

[2:10:36] I think that's great for both council and the public to hear,

[2:10:40] considering some of the questions we have had recently.

[2:10:43] With that being said, we will now move on to council, our city

[2:10:47] council communications.

[2:10:48] It's an unstructured time for council members

[2:10:51] to discuss current matters, share ideas

[2:10:53] for possible future consideration by council,

[2:10:56] and provide information from board

[2:10:58] and commission participation.

[2:11:01] Council Member staff I just.

[2:11:02] This isn't about Gordon or community liaison,

[2:11:07] communication, anything.

[2:11:08] But I was.

[2:11:10] I have to go to the East Coast for work on the week

[2:11:14] of September 13 13th of Sunday, so the week of September

[2:11:20] 14 and was supposed to be back.

[2:11:25] I had a flight back for Wednesday

[2:11:26] that would have gotten me in at Wednesday at noon.

[2:11:28] And instead I have another thing that I have to do for work

[2:11:31] that's going to keep me there.

[2:11:32] And it involves an evening component.

[2:11:34] So I'm not going to be here for the I'm not going to be here

[2:11:38] nor be able to call in for the September 16 meeting.

[2:11:42] I did my did everything I could to try to be here for that,

[2:11:45] but work obligations won't allow it this time around.

[2:11:49] Does that include the 14th workshop as well that I

[2:11:52] haven't figured out yet that we're still

[2:11:54] building the schedule for my time there,

[2:11:57] and I'm not entirely sure.

[2:11:59] We're obviously a two hour time difference,

[2:12:00] so I'm going to do what I can to be here on the 14th.

[2:12:03] But the 16th is definitely fully completed the whole day.

[2:12:09] Council Member Kennedy.

[2:12:10] Yeah, just a few things.

[2:12:11] I just wanted to let council know that the Mesa County

[2:12:16] commissioners appointed me as their Colorado Basin roundtable,

[2:12:20] Mesa County municipal rep.

[2:12:22] So I've been going to Glenwood and/or remoting

[2:12:26] into the Colorado Basin roundtable meetings.

[2:12:28] It's a lot of water policy discussion.

[2:12:32] State engineer is involved.

[2:12:34] We have conversations around Shoshone and some other things.

[2:12:37] So it's a great thing to be involved with.

[2:12:40] So I'll certainly be sharing some additional information

[2:12:43] from that.

[2:12:44] And along those lines of water as well.

[2:12:47] I just want to mention that the annual water seminar is

[2:12:52] coming up on September 18 for the Colorado

[2:12:57] River district puts on.

[2:12:58] So if any of you are interested in available on September 18,

[2:13:02] tink.

[2:13:03] I think Scott's been there with me the last couple of years.

[2:13:06] But if more, if some of us are going to be there,

[2:13:09] we might as well put that on our just agendize it so public

[2:13:14] knows that we're there.

[2:13:15] And then last thing I wanted to mention

[2:13:18] is I went on a ride along last week with Sergeant Ansell

[2:13:22] and one of his crew teams got Dearborn,

[2:13:25] and we were in the side by side and did the riverfront area.

[2:13:31] I'm going to share a few pictures via email

[2:13:34] with everybody, just so they get an idea of some of the stuff

[2:13:37] that's happening on.

[2:13:38] We're kind of on from Watson all the way down

[2:13:40] to the area behind the skating rink, kind of behind bananas.

[2:13:44] So just an update for where we're at there.

[2:13:47] I thought it was very helpful, but I have to pay my compliments

[2:13:51] to Stan and his team.

[2:13:53] Super respectful.

[2:13:55] So professional.

[2:13:57] Treat, treat people with dignity.

[2:13:59] But also for some of the situations

[2:14:02] that with a bunch of pitbulls off leash, where

[2:14:05] he was just safe.

[2:14:07] But communicated effectively and was just he was professional.

[2:14:12] I think he represented us very well.

[2:14:13] But I just wanted to share that with council.

[2:14:16] So you kind of know what's going on there.

[2:14:18] Great thank you.

[2:14:19] Anything council member Nguyen.

[2:14:22] Council Member balthus.

[2:14:24] It's probably under the workshop topics,

[2:14:27] but there continues to be conversation and concern

[2:14:32] about flock cameras.

[2:14:35] So I think we had requested it.

[2:14:39] Come on up.

[2:14:40] Yeah all right.

[2:14:42] I've got a couple different things.

[2:14:44] I had a DDA meeting this last week,

[2:14:50] and some issues have come up with the terminal project

[2:14:55] as they've been running their vibratory roller

[2:14:57] across the site.

[2:14:59] Some of the neighboring businesses

[2:15:01] had started to complain about the wall

[2:15:02] shaking and plaster falling from the ceilings, which really gave

[2:15:07] them some concern going into the next phase

[2:15:10] where they were going to be hammering

[2:15:13] the pillars, pile pillars.

[2:15:15] I think they're called into the ground

[2:15:17] where it could cause substantial vibration throughout that site.

[2:15:21] Because of that, they've decided that's probably

[2:15:23] not the best route forward.

[2:15:26] So they are going to be moving to a helical pier,

[2:15:28] is what they call it, essentially drilling

[2:15:31] the pier down into the ground, which should create

[2:15:34] far less vibration on the site.

[2:15:37] With that being said, it's going to be

[2:15:38] about an additional $500,000, it sounds like, to the project.

[2:15:42] So that should be coming through to council relatively soon,

[2:15:46] I think, as a supplemental appropriation.

[2:15:50] Then on the business incubator side, as many

[2:15:54] of the Department of Energy is moving out to horizon drive.

[2:15:58] It sounds like they plan on completing that move

[2:16:00] by the end of next year.

[2:16:03] With that happening, that kind of

[2:16:05] creates a situation for the business incubator

[2:16:07] where they're no longer going to be

[2:16:09] feasible to care for that site and financially

[2:16:12] be able to handle that site.

[2:16:14] So they are looking at some options to move currently.

[2:16:18] But they have asked the RTC about the possibility of RTC

[2:16:25] signing over the land, deeding over the land to the business

[2:16:28] incubator so that they can use that as leverage,

[2:16:32] looking forward to their next projects.

[2:16:36] So I think that's going to be coming to council here

[2:16:38] before too long as they iron out some of the details with that

[2:16:41] as well.

[2:16:41] But I'm hugely supportive of that project.

[2:16:44] I think the business incubator is paid for that property

[2:16:47] time and time again in equity to our community and impact

[2:16:51] in our community.

[2:16:52] So I look forward to the future of the business incubator

[2:16:55] in a more visible location, and hopefully something on that side

[2:17:00] as well.

[2:17:02] Beyond that, that's all I've got on council communications.

[2:17:06] Did you have anything, council member

[2:17:07] Ballard I don't thank you.

[2:17:11] All right.

[2:17:12] With that, we will move into next workshop topics

[2:17:15] and we'll turn it back over to City manager Bennett.

[2:17:18] All right.

[2:17:19] At the September 14 meeting, we have

[2:17:22] an update on the water supply element

[2:17:25] of our comprehensive plan.

[2:17:26] It's a requirement from the state.

[2:17:28] We've been working on it actually doesn't ironically

[2:17:33] doesn't take council action.

[2:17:34] But we want to just give council an overview

[2:17:37] of that before we finish the process with the state.

[2:17:41] And that added piece.

[2:17:43] So the city manager's office, working with the utility

[2:17:46] department and community development

[2:17:48] have been working on that.

[2:17:50] So we'll do an overview of that.

[2:17:52] We have our discussion on local preference

[2:17:54] with procurement that night.

[2:17:57] And we also will bring a discussion related

[2:18:00] to a recommendation we want to bring to council

[2:18:02] for a possible policy related to data

[2:18:05] centers and potential moratorium on that type of development.

[2:18:10] So we have those for sure.

[2:18:12] There's a couple other items that have been mentioned earlier

[2:18:14] that we're trying to line up if able on that night to squeeze

[2:18:19] in there because we're going to we'll

[2:18:22] definitely be fully focused on budget during October

[2:18:26] and possibly that first meeting in November,

[2:18:30] we did have a request based on what we talked about tonight

[2:18:34] and with the first workshop on October 5,

[2:18:38] we anticipate that there's going to be quite a bit

[2:18:42] to walk through in that proposed budget

[2:18:44] and likely some added discussion and added work

[2:18:48] that we'll need to put in before we come

[2:18:50] back to that next workshop.

[2:18:52] And so Jay and his team have asked

[2:18:55] that if it works for council, we would love to bump the October

[2:19:00] 19, which is the third Monday in October

[2:19:06] workshop to the following week.

[2:19:08] So it would be the 26, Monday the 26th.

[2:19:11] So just rescheduling our October 19 budget

[2:19:16] workshop to October 26, but we didn't

[2:19:19] want to move forward with that.

[2:19:21] If that causes if for some reason

[2:19:23] we've got a number of council not able

[2:19:25] to attend because we definitely want the group there.

[2:19:28] But knowing we're probably going to need more time

[2:19:30] in between those two with the level of discussion

[2:19:34] we're going to be having.

[2:19:36] Anybody have a concern over that at the moment.

[2:19:40] Looking there's a very, very small chance

[2:19:42] of going to a conference.

[2:19:43] But at this point it's not confirmed.

[2:19:45] And I'm not feeling confident that it will happen.

[2:19:49] The other reminder is that assuming we move that to the 26,

[2:19:55] but the October 5 and October 26, as we've done in the past,

[2:19:59] we would start those earlier at 4:04 PM and to have more hours

[2:20:04] in that evening to really comb through the detail that will

[2:20:07] be presenting and discussing.

[2:20:09] So four o'clock PM, October 5 and ninth and 26.

[2:20:14] We'll keep the second open for any kind of last minute,

[2:20:19] last minute or of after those two workshops,

[2:20:23] if we have to revisit anything.

[2:20:25] For the time being.

[2:20:27] Otherwise, we'll start adding in some of those to be determined

[2:20:31] or to be scheduled items that we have on the list.

[2:20:34] So that's all I have for tonight.

[2:20:36] That's going to be fun.

[2:20:37] All right.

[2:20:38] With that, let's move into other business.

[2:20:41] Request for proclamations.

[2:20:43] The first one being the International

[2:20:45] Overdose Awareness day.

[2:20:47] And that's a social proclamation.

[2:20:48] Nation do we have a staff presentation on that

[2:20:54] or is that just conversation amongst council.

[2:20:57] Is everybody comfortable with that as a social proclamation

[2:21:02] motion.

[2:21:04] Seeing lots of head nods.

[2:21:05] So with that, we will move to another request

[2:21:09] for proclamation.

[2:21:10] And that is white Cane Day, another social proclamation.

[2:21:13] We've done this one for years, seeing lots of nods on that

[2:21:17] as well.

[2:21:18] So I think we're good on that front.

[2:21:20] And then to wrap things up, we will be with the Grand Junction

[2:21:23] housing authority interview team discussion

[2:21:26] on recommended appointment.

[2:21:30] That was me, Laurel.

[2:21:31] Yes, we did the interviews last Tuesday.

[2:21:34] We only had two applicants for one spot,

[2:21:39] and we ultimately decided to appoint Randall based

[2:21:45] on the input from the chair.

[2:21:49] He basically they were both super qualified, but kind of

[2:21:55] leans towards Randall because of the social work aspect,

[2:22:00] because they're the other candidate had

[2:22:04] more of a financial background.

[2:22:06] And there's I guess based on the makeup of the board right now,

[2:22:09] there is a lot of that.

[2:22:11] So both Laurel and the board chair

[2:22:14] were most comfortable with appointing Randall.

[2:22:17] So that's what.

[2:22:20] And just to make sure that everything's clear,

[2:22:22] we're talking Randall.

[2:22:22] Yeah Yeah that's great.

[2:22:26] Any other questions or comments about that.

[2:22:29] All right.

[2:22:30] Check back in with city manager Bennett.

[2:22:32] Did you have anything to add on.

[2:22:34] All right.

[2:22:35] With that, we are adjourned.

[2:22:38]

City Council - 2026 - August 31 - Workshop

Agenda

Transcript